Greetings in the Strong Name of Jesus!!

Luke 17:3-5 - “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!’” NLT

Jesus tells this story to give us instruction we are to never grow weary of bombarding Heaven with our prayers.  It reminds me of some of those moments in raising our children.  There were times when one or both of our children would “wear us out” with requests for this or that or a snack of some kind.  Often, as you did as well, we would finally give in just so we wouldn’t have to hear that little voice any longer.  I must say there is a new little voice in our lives that rarely has to ask twice and he succeeds in getting what he wants - our grandson, Caleb.  But with our children it never was quite that easy.

In essence, Jesus is telling us the woman in this story finally got justice because of her persistence.  She went before the judge repeatedly to plead her case.  He is telling us the same in our prayer life.  There are times we must come repeatedly to God in prayer to see the answer.  I have discovered something in bringing things repeatedly to the Lord in prayer.  Often times the longer I pray about something the more insight I receive about the thing for which I am praying.  That, in turn may bring about a change in my prayer or it may convince me even more I am praying according to the will of God.  There was an obvious injustice in this situation and the judge finally agreed.  Sometimes it is obvious we are praying in the will of the Father and other times we discover we are asking for the wrong thing.

If we are to see answered prayer we must pray without ceasing.  We must “wear God out”.  When we are obviously praying in the will of God, God may delay the answer on occasion to see how serious we are about a more intimate relationship with Him.  At other times I believe He delays to allow us time to see His will more clearly thereby breeding more passion in us about following Him and continuing in prayer.  There are some times when simply praying brings us into a place with Him that is wonderful and glorious and we don’t want to leave that place.  On other occasions I simply cannot explain why we don’t see answers we think we should.  And that my friend brings us to a purer and deeper faith in God and a deep conviction that He hears and will answer according to His will and time and leaves us with a feeling that “all is well”.  Have you been “wearing God out” in prayer?  It’s okay, He can deal with it.
You are loved and prayed for,
Pastor Roger