¹⁸ Then Elisha said, “Take the arrows!” so Joash took them. Elisha then said to Israel’s king, “Hit the ground with them!” Joash hit the ground three times and stopped. ¹⁹ The man of God became angry with him. He said, “If only you had struck five or six times, you would have finished the Arameans off. As it is, you will defeat them only three times.” (2 Kings 13:18-19, CEB)

Elisha was on his deathbed and one last king comes to consult Elisha because the king is in trouble. Elisha predicts victory over the enemy, then tells Joash to strike the arrows on the ground. Elisha was angry because Joash gave up. He was half-hearted. He wasn’t told how many times to strike the ground, so he gives it a weak effort and stops.

Prayer and asking things of God can be like a dial-up connection in a 4G world. Who has time to stop and actually ask what God may want? We think we can fire off a text to God, keep him up to date on our Twitter account, and that should be good. Why can’t God answer a request of 140 characters or less?

Hey, as long as we get into this argument about the Bible doesn’t “apply” to us today, let’s just throw out that whole, “Ask, seek, knock” stuff. (Of course, we’ve already done that in practice, but let’s make it official.) Who has time to keep on seeking? I have a life, you know!

The principles of the Kingdom are soooo out of date! Let’s see if we can get God to speed things up a bit.

But the Kingdom moves on… and it moves in power. And that power comes through prayer. Asking. Seeking. Knocking.

For how long?

As “old-time Pentecostals” used to say, “You pray until.”

“Until what?”

That’s when they would give me a weird look.

Lord, help us to hear the voice of the Spirit.