Be persistent in prayer
There are a lot of things you and I probably don’t understand about prayer. Okay, I will leave you out of it and speak for myself. There is a lot I don’t understand about prayer. Sometimes I think I understand prayer. It is usually on the day my prayers are answered in a way that I desire and according to my preferences and timeline. But it is on the days where struggles remain and I see someone in need that my understanding of prayer is challenged.
Jesus understood that we would have days like that. One reason we know that Jesus understands our struggle with prayer is because of a parable he told his disciples. In Luke 18:1, we learn a critical lesson concerning our prayer lives: “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Jesus gives us a very specific lesson about prayer; we ought always to pray and not lose heart.
I bet you haven’t given up on prayer. Neither have I. But the temptation to lose heart comes from time to time when we don’t see immediate answers or the answers we want. I suspect that we usually think the answers we want and when we want them must certainly align with God’s plans. But then we often forget that God’s understanding of both time and what is best may not always be the same as ours. There is a big difference between infinite wisdom and ultimate justice and our limited wisdom and preferred justice.
The parable is a bit odd. The widow in the story is persistent with her requests. And Jesus was certainly wanting us to follow her example. But the judge is described as one who neither feared God nor respected man. The God we read about and know is certainly not like that judge. As the parable explained, this unrighteous judge finally gives in to the widow’s persistence and grants her the justice she requested.
Jesus wrapped up the parable this way:
“And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.”
Don’t you want Jesus to explain exactly how long it takes to get speedily? Seems to me that should be today, shouldn’t it? Jesus closed this parable with a challenging question. One that we need to wrestle with:
“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
If we go back to Luke 17, Jesus spoke to his disciples about the coming kingdom of God. He referred to Sodom and Gomorrah and to the times of Noah. He said that when the Son of Man comes, things will look a lot like they did back then. People will still be making selfish decisions. Life on earth will still be marked by sin. This is important context for the parable Jesus told about prayer.
Jesus gave us a way to understand that we will need our faith, and we will need to always pray and never lose heart because we are working out our salvation here and now in a world marred by sin and brokenness. Things are often unjust. We will need to exercise our faith not just for a moment but for a lifetime.
The events of Holy Week help us to gain perspective and increase faith. Jesus will experience rejection. He will experience the harshness of the sin of others. And just hours before he gives up his life for us, he will pray desperately for God’s intervention and for the strength to endure his father’s will even in agony.
But Easter morning reminds us that long suffering is not the end of the journey but a road to be traveled. If an unrighteous judge ultimately does the right thing for a widow in distress, we can be assured that God will resolve all things in our lives and in this world not just with justice but also with grace and mercy.
Father, thank you for the teaching of Jesus and also for the example of Jesus. Thank you for your promise that you will bring justice to your beloved children as we cry out to you today and every day. Increase our faith that you will not only get us through the suffering of this world but also renew, redeem, and restore all that is broken in and around us. In Jesus name, Amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Luke 18:1-8 ESV
Photo by Yanin Diaz on Unsplash
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