Persistence in prayer
One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? Luke 18:1-7
When our minds are clouded with doubts these could affect our desire to pray. This could lead to losing hope and our desire to be persistent in prayers. Prayer is an expression of faith. Faith in God does not give up easily. From our text, God’s message for us is not to give up. Do not let doubts tempt us to think that God is not listening, uncaring, or not true to His Word. We tend to think that prayer is one quick session of listing needs and expecting immediate answers from God. Prayer is an ongoing conversation with God. It is based on absolute faith in God. It is having an assurance that God listens and will answer when and where He chooses. God expects His children to come to Him in faith and persistent in their prayer. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ was presenting in the parable He told His disciples from the text. A persistent widow came to an uncaring judge. The judge showed unwillingness to listen and ignored the widow. But she will not stop until the judge finally gave in so he could get rid of her. Then Jesus turned to His disciples and told them that if an uncaring judge will respond to a persistent request how much more the heavenly Father who cares and loves His children. God will never put you off. The problem then rests on us. We lack persistent in our prayer because of the lack of faith. Being persistent runs counter to our human nature for we are impatient. We allow the culture influence us by having our desires yield to instant gratification. Yet it is only by coming to God in persistence that we grow in our faith in Him. Such attitude could lead to not discovering solution to our problems or getting deeper in to a mess because we took matters into our hands. When God seemed to be delaying His answer, we should not conclude immediately that He does not care. Instead be rest assured that the delay is with a purpose. God has His own timetable and most of the time it does not coincide with ours. “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine” (Isiah 55:8).
Blessings,
Noel De Guzman
www.my-wbc.com
YouTube channel: WestsideBCLA
