“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

George Mueller prayed for 62 years that a friend would accept Jesus as Savior. At George’s funeral, God finally answered that prayer.

Why pray more than once for something? There may be several reasons. Perhaps we need to purify our motives. Maybe God wants us to pray away our unbelief. No doubt, God has a different time schedule than we do, and we just need to wait patiently for Him to answer. In any case, we need to pray persistently because He tells us to.

God must have known that persisting in prayer would be hard for us, so He gave several parables on that subject.

A Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter. His disciples urged Him not to bother with her: “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us” (Matthew 15:23). But she persisted, and Jesus not only healed her daughter; He commended the woman’s faith.

Jesus said that persistence in prayer works. That means we should never give up. In God’s good time—62 minutes or 62 years—He will answer.