Persistent Prayer part 2
Category: Faithblogs
Ted Turner, the cable television millionaire, was once at an American Humanist Association banquet, where he received an award for his work on the environment and world peace. During his acceptance speech he openly criticized prayer saying, “I gave up (on faith), when, despite my prayers, my sister died. The more I strayed from my faith, the better I felt!”
I think this remark by Ted Turner reflects the attitude that many hold concerning the matter of prayer. Many people will pray about something for a while and when the answer doesn’t come when they think it should, or their prayers seemed to be a lot of wasted hot air, they just throw up their hands in defeat and say, “What’s the use?” And although many believers wouldn’t openly admit it, I think I can safely say that at one point or another we have all probably thought the same thing!
Luke 18:1-8 challenges this way of thinking. In these verses, the Lord Jesus tells His disciples a parable that is designed to teach them the importance of remaining persistent in prayer.
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ 4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Luke 18:1-8
In verse 3 we are introduced to a widow that had a grievance against someone that was lying heavily upon her heart. We do not know the nature of this woman’s burden, but she comes to the judge and asks for justice against him/her. What the text doesn’t tell us, but as always context can fill in some of the blanks for us, is that this woman had several things working against her in this situation.
First, she was a woman and in ancient times women were not allowed to speak in court. The text tells us that she was a widow and as such she had no husband to speak for her. Not only that, but widows were often oppressed and often taken advantage of. Also being a widow was synonymous in ancient times with being poor and as such, she probably had no money with which to grease the wheels of justice, so she couldn’t have paid a bribe even if she had wanted too.
However, the Bible says she “kept coming”. In the Greek this phrase comes with the idea that she was begging this judge for help every day – every single day! When the judge showed up for court, there she was outside the courthouse. When he went into the marketplace, there she was. She pleaded with him in front of his friends. She stalked him at home. Everywhere he went, there she was, constantly asking him to give her justice. These days a judge might have had this woman arrested for harassment and stalking, but because of her social and financial standing, she had no other other choice, no other hope, but to seek help from this judge. Therefore, the text tells us that she made a nuisance of herself before him, everyday, until she received the very thing she was after – even if it meant that the judge would become angry and have her thrown in jail.
The widow in the story represents us. There are times in life when we, like her, are loaded down with cares, worries, fears and troubles. And during those times, it may seem that every circumstance of life is stacked against us. It’s often during these times when we may be the temptation to say, “What’s the use?”, especially after we have prayed and prayed and prayed about some matter.
Yet, if we can learn anything from this poor woman, let us learn the lesson that persistence in prayer pays off in God’s time! So, keep praying, despite all the obstacles you face, despite all the naysayers, and despite all the signs that say you should just give up! Because she eventually got through to the judge and got what she so much desired.
Next time: What can we learn from the judge and ultimately about God?
Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
March, 2009
Picture by Dora Pete
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