Judges 14:2, 17 And he came up and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore get her for me to wife….And she wept before him seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her people.
Nothing good comes of pestering and continuous pleading to get your own way. In the story of Samson we are given two examples of the dangers of pestering.
Samson saw a Philistine woman of Timnath. He wanted her as wife. He asked his parents for her. They at first said “No” because it was against God’s Law and because the Philistines were their enemies. But Samson’s father gave in to his demand, and she ended up betraying him at the wedding feast with disastrous results. What Samson got for his pestering was a bad thing.
Then at the wedding feast he put forth a riddle to the Philistines, and he promised 30 changes of clothes if they could answer it. They couldn’t, so they asked his new bride to cajole the answer out of him. She pestered Samson during the seven days of the feast until he relented and told her the answer to his riddle about the lion and the honey. She told the Philistines, and then things got bad for them because Samson killed 30 Philistines to get the clothes he swore to give them. What the woman got for her pestering was a bad thing.
Jesus tells us to continue to ask, seek, and knock. And He tells two parables about persistence in prayer, but the persistence arises from a sure faith that what we are praying is God’s will. Pestering arises from praying what is not God’s will. What we want may not be good for us.