He Just Keeps Trying: What My Husband Taught Me About Prayer and Perseverance

Pull up a chair, friend, because I want to tell you something about my husband Daron.

The man does not quit.

I don’t mean that in some Instagram-caption kind of way. I mean it in the way that I have watched him, up close and personal, get door after door closed in his face in the contracting and building world, and without missing more than a beat, he just pivots and tries the next one. And the next one. And the one after that.

This store can’t get us materials. Okay. Find another supplier. This subcontractor falls through at the worst possible time. Fine. Make some calls. This contract doesn’t come through. Keep going. Something else always shows up.

But here’s what I want you to notice, because this is the part that got me. It’s not just persistence in himself. Every single time a door opens after a season of closed ones, I hear him say something like,

“Babe, you should have seen how God showed up on the job site today.”

He’s not taking credit. He’s giving it. He sees every open door as God answering. And every closed one as God redirecting.

That is a man who understands something about prayer that I am honestly still learning.

What Daron Taught Me About Not Quitting

Y’all, I have not always been good at this. If I’m being real with you, a closed door used to feel personal to me. Like maybe I asked wrong. Maybe I didn’t have enough faith. Maybe God was saying no forever and I should just move on.

Watching Daron has rewired something in me. He doesn’t read closed doors as rejection. He reads them as redirection. And he keeps moving, keeps praying, keeps believing that the right door is still out there. I want to be more like that. I’m not there yet, but I’m in the middle of learning it, and maybe that’s exactly where you are too.

So this isn’t a post from someone who has it all figured out. This is me, sitting across the table from you, saying I think Jesus was talking about something really important in Luke 11, and it’s changing the way I pray. Its’ changing the way I understand prayer and perseverance.

What Jesus Actually Said About Prayer and Perseverance in Luke 11

I was reading one morning in Luke 11 in the Passion Translation, and I felt like I was reading about Daron.

Jesus tells this story about a man who needs bread in the middle of the night. His friend has just shown up unexpectedly, there’s no food in the house, and so he walks over to his neighbor’s door and starts knocking. Midnight. Knocking. The neighbor yells from inside, “Stop bothering me, the door is locked and we’re in bed.” And the man outside keeps knocking.

Here’s what Luke 11:8 says in the Passion Translation: “I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his bold persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs.”

Bold persistence.

Jesus isn’t telling this story to shame us for not praying enough. He’s painting a picture of what it looks like to actually believe that Someone is on the other side of the door. You don’t keep knocking on a door you believe is empty. You keep knocking because you know somebody’s in there. And you know they hear you. And you know they have exactly what you need.

Keep Asking, Seeking, and Knocking.

Verses 9 and 10 are the ones you probably know. “Ask and keep asking and it will be given to you. Seek and keep seeking and you will find. Knock and keep knocking and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps asking will receive, and the one who keeps seeking will find, and to the one who keeps knocking, the door will be opened.”

Read that again. Ask and keep asking. Seek and keep seeking.

This is not a one-time prayer and done. This is a posture. A lifestyle. A way of living with your hands open and your feet moving forward even when the first three doors didn’t budge.

I’ll be honest. Some mornings I sit down to pray and it feels a little bit like knocking at midnight. Like I’ve brought this same thing to God before and nothing looks different yet. But this passage reminds me that persistence in prayer isn’t about twisting God’s arm. It’s about staying in relationship with Him through the wait. It’s what faithfulness looks like when it’s tired and still shows up anyway.

That’s what Daron does on a job site. And I think that’s what Jesus is asking us to do on our knees.

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What Bold Persistence Looks Like in Real Life

So what does this actually look like on a regular Tuesday?

It means you pray about that thing again even though you prayed about it yesterday and nothing looks different yet. You don’t confuse a closed door with a final answer. And, it means you give God the credit when something opens, and you trust Him with the redirect when something closes.

It means you become the kind of person who says, “You should have seen how God showed up today,” because you’ve been paying close enough attention to actually notice.

You don’t have to have a polished, eloquent prayer. The neighbor at midnight wasn’t eloquent. He was just persistent. And Jesus said that was enough.

So keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking.

He hears you. He’s not asleep. And He has exactly what you need.

What’s one thing you’ve been hesitant to keep bringing to God? Drop it in the comments below. You are not alone in the waiting.

XO,