Sunday 18th August 2024
Persevere in Prayer
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”…
…5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. LUKE 11
I have a confession to make: Most weekdays there is a staff prayer meeting. It usually lasts for about 30-45 minutes and we pray for a variety of things. So far that is more like a Christian brag than a confession, isn’t it!? But here’s the thing: Sometimes, my mind drifts. Sometimes I have the sudden realisation that I am not sure who we just prayed for. Some days, as I head into that meeting, I silently wonder whether my time wouldn’t be better spent cracking on with something on my ever increasing to-do list.
Has any of that ever happened to you?
I don’t know if the disciple who asked Jesus “Lord, teach us to pray” struggled with any of the things I’ve just mentioned. But I’m convinced that Jesus’s answer has something for me in my struggles:
Jesus says I need to persevere in prayer. He suggests that if you ask a friend for something in the middle of the night, you might well get told to “go away”, or worse. But if you keep on badgering, in the end your friend will give you what you want because you’re so audacious – you break all social conventions by daring to keep asking, and he just wants to get back to bed!
Jesus’s point is this – we are selfish and apathetic, but if someone nags us enough, we’ll eventually do what they ask. How much more can we expect God to pour out his mercies on us when we continually ask him? He is not selfish or lazy, he loves us and he is kind!
But the problem is, I’m disappointed when an item on Amazon won’t come until the day after tomorrow. I get cross with my TV when I press the Netflix button and sit for 5 seconds with the spinning red circle. I finished reading a novel the other day and immediately Googled when the sequel was coming… Don’t get me wrong, I think it has always been hard to persevere in prayer, that’s why Jesus told this parable 2000 years ago. But we’ve gone past the idea of “if it doesn’t work, quit” to something like “if it doesn’t work RIGHT NOW, quit!!!” And so the thought sets in: “It’s no use praying”. We see no visible benefits from it. We persuade ourselves that we get on just as well without it. Laziness and unbelief win the battle for our hearts, and we stop.
Resist! We must resist! By God’s grace we must resolve to keep on praying, no matter how weak and feeble our prayers seem. It’s not an accident that the Bible says over and over “pray without ceasing”, “continue in prayer”, “pray always and do not faint”… We need those reminders, and God graciously gives them to us. Let’s persevere in prayer. We don’t know when or how, but Jesus wants us to have confidence that the question is never “will God answer?” He will. Keep praying. Don’t give up.
With love in Christ,
Tom Bryant (Youth and Families Minister)