I believe you will agree with me that this is one election season that all of us will be happy to see come to an end. One of the candidates for president . . . I won’t say which one . . . was campaigning in West Virginia recently. Some of the coal miners were not real happy about it when the candidate asked for their vote.
“Vote for you?” one of them jeered. “Why, I’d sooner vote for the Devil!”
“Fair enough!” called out the candidate, “But in the event that your friend doesn’t run, may I have your support?”
Well, that’s one candidate who wasn’t put off by a little opposition. That’s good. The mark of a successful person is that he or she doesn’t give up just because things are not going his or her way.
One man who never gave up was Thomas Edison. Edison’s wife died at a very young age. Two years later he remarried. During the time he was single he became accustomed to going to his lab at all hours of the night and day. This became a habit. Thus, he asked his bride on their wedding night if she would mind if he went over to the lab “for a little while.”
“No,” she answered.
Hours later, one of Edison’s assistants drove by the lab and saw lights. Immediately, he suspected burglars. Imagine his surprise when he discovered Edison at work. “Mr. Edison,” he said, “this is your wedding night! What are you doing here?”
The inventor looked puzzled. “Oh yes,” he said, and calmly left the lab.
Don’t you suspect that there were many other such nights for Mrs. Edison? Once Edison began a project, he did not like to quit until he was finished. Maybe that is why Edison still holds the record for the most patents (1,093) granted to one individual. (1)
Jesus evidently appreciated people who refused to quit. He once told a parable about a widow who had had a fierce determination for justice. Her determination was so great that she pestered a certain judge until he granted her request. And this was no ordinary judge. Jesus described him as one “who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.” In the Old West he might have been described as a hanging judge. Strong men dreaded appearing in his court. Lawyers tread softly as they approached his bench.
But this stern judge was no match for this persistent widow. She was not a person of influence, power or wealth. But she had a characteristic that would stand her in good stead. And that was that she never gave up. She simply wore him down. Like dripping water will eventually wear down the strongest marble, her pestering prevailed.
Even though he initially refused to hear her case, he finally ruled in her favor, saying to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice . . .”
It’s a fascinating story. But here’s what’s really interesting. Jesus is using it as an illustration of why we should never give up on prayer. If your prayer is seemingly not answered at first, don’t give up, says Jesus. Keep asking.
Now that doesn’t mean repeating vain, repetitious prayers.
There is a story about a little boy who was praying, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” Then there was a long pause. He couldn’t remember what came next. His mother prompted him from the doorway. “If,” she said quietly.
The little boy prayed, “If . . . if . . .” Then he brightened up and said triumphantly, “If he hollars let him go, Eeny, meeny, miny, mo!”
Persistent prayer doesn’t mean empty phrases. It also doesn’t mean that our prayers have to be long and eloquent. There is famous incident in the life of that great evangelist Dwight L. Moody with which many of us can identify. A gentleman had been called upon to pray and somehow couldn’t find a quitting place. That sometimes happens in extemporaneous prayer. The fellow just went on and on and on.
Moody disliked long prayers in the first place, but even more importantly, he saw that this prayer was an impediment to the worship service. Finally Moody interrupted the prayer to suggest that the congregation go ahead and sing another hymn while the dear brother finished praying. Was Moody correct in moving on with the service?
In the congregation that night was a bright young medical student who had ventured into the service out of curiosity. However the student started to slip out during this long, boring prayer. When Moody interrupted the prayer, it struck a positive note with the young man. He sat back down and that night gave his heart to Christ. His name was William Grenfell, and he would become a medical missionary to Labrador and one of Moody’s most famous converts.
Martin Luther once put it succinctly, “The fewer words, the better [the] prayer.”
No meaningless platitudes, no high-sounding phrases, no lengthy dissertations-- but keep praying. If there is a need that you have--or someone close to you has--keep praying. Even if the heavens are silent, the world is crumbling about you, and there seems to be no discernible answer--keep praying. Even if your spouse says you are foolish, your friends doubt your sanity and your own faith grows thin, keep praying.
Prayer makes a difference. Prayer changes events and prayer changes people. It is so sad that many of us are neglecting this tremendous resource.
There is a rural area of Texas that, if you had visited it half-century ago, you would have discovered grinding poverty. Today you will find lush, green, irrigated crops, well-furnished homes, new automobiles, paved roads, well-dressed people.
If you asked what had happened, you would be told that oil and gas had been discovered under the once-barren land. During all those earlier years in poverty, the farmers had been living over untold riches--millions of dollars worth of natural resources hidden in the ground. They simply had not discovered them, unlocked them and used them to change the quality of their lives.
Many of us live barren lives spiritually. And the sad thing is that within our reach is untold spiritual riches. In the words of a popular song, “Help is only a prayer away.”
It is said that when Lawrence of Arabia came to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, he brought with him Arab chieftains who had never seen running water. They came from a land where water was scarce and greatly valued, but right there in their hotel room was a seemingly endless supply of this precious commodity available at the mere turning of a tap.
When these chieftains were preparing to leave Paris, Lawrence found them trying to detach the faucet in their hotel bathroom so that out in the dry desert they would always have water. Lawrence tried to explain to them that the water was not in the faucet but in huge reservoirs many miles away. These chieftains were convinced, however, that there was something magical about the faucets themselves. (2)
So it is with many of us who get dressed each Sunday, drive to church, sing hymns, and do all the good things religious people do, but meanwhile, we have cut ourselves off from a reservoir of spiritual renewal by allowing our personal prayer life to become almost non-existent.
Study the New Testament. See how important prayer was in the life of Jesus. See how much he talked about prayer with his disciples. See the effect of prayer on the early church. To dismiss prayer as a last resort for when you are really, really desperate is to miss the meaning of the Gospel. The very power and presence of God is available to the believer. The Word that became incarnate in Jesus Christ is still at work in the lives of persons today who are open to his leading. Prayer is the means by which we connect ourselves to the One who is the Creator and Sustainer of Life.
But there is something about prayer we need. God does not work according to our time schedule or even according to our methods in meeting in our needs.
Why should this poor widow have to plead and pester and cajole this judge to grant her wishes? Isn’t this an acknowledgement that sometimes heaven is silent? Listen to Jesus’ words in verse 7: “Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?”
Have you ever been in a situation where you have cried out day and night? Having affirmed that prayer does work, we must now add that prayer is not Aladdin’s lamp. There is no genie who suddenly appears to satisfy your every supplication. Every saint has known what it is to go through the “dark night of the soul.” Why it should be so will not be known until God takes away the veil and we see Him face to face.
Perhaps the only acceptable answer is that we are creatures and he is Creator, we are children and he is Father, we are finite and He is infinite. It is a humbling thought. We are so sure that we know best. It is infuriating to think that God may be saying to us even as we say to our children, “Not now. Not today. That is not in your best interest. That is not in my plan.” If your trust is not found in God’s absolute love for you, you will never have a satisfying prayer life.
There are some things about God’s work in this world that we will never understand. For example, we do not believe that God deliberately afflicts his children, and yet it is impossible to ignore the fact that some of the world’s greatest treasures were forged in the fire of adversity.
If the great conductor Arturo Toscanini had offered one prayer in youth, it might have been for more perfect eyes, for he was very near-sighted. He could not foresee that at the age of nineteen a remarkable event would occur that would change his life forever, thanks to his imperfect eyes. He was playing cello in an orchestra. Just before an important performance, the conductor was suddenly stricken quite ill. What would they do for someone to lead the orchestra that night? Fortunately, they discovered that one member of the orchestra had memorized the entire score. It was young Toscanini. His vision was so poor that he could not read music on a stand so he had trained himself to play it “by heart.” Who could say that a Toscanini with perfect vision would have been better off?
In the later years of his life the imaginative writer John Milton lost his position and his sight as well. His body was tortured with illness, and many of his friends forsook him. There were many nights and days when he cried aloud to God for mercy. However, it was during this time that he produced his immortal classic Paradise Lost--which was must reading for students of the English language for over 300 years.
The equally influential writer John Bunyan would have prayed for deliverance from prison, but it was during that confinement that he produced Pilgrim’s Progress--a work that has inspired millions.
Again we would caution that it is not God’s intentional will that any of His people should suffer. Still, the purpose of this world is to create souls who can glorify God and enjoy him forever, and sometimes adversity enhances this process.
Virginia Ely tells about a German painting which she called “Cloud Land.” On first looking at the picture it appears to be nothing but a mass of clouds--one cloud upon another. But the observer who takes time to study the picture closely after a while sees each cloud turn into an angel’s face or an angel’s wing. The picture is filled with angels.
“So it is with all clouds,” writes Ms. Ely, “If by them God comes close to us they turn into ministering angels. Clouds may seem not desirable in themselves, and in our foolishness of judgement we would walk always in the sunshine; but our heavenly Father knows what is best for us, and He would never send the clouds were they not for our good.”
Alfred Russell Wallace, a prominent scientist once observed a monarch butterfly trying to get out of its cocoon and wrote this about it: “It struggled, pushed and pulled for a long time until finally its body emerged fully. The butterfly rested momentarily, fluttered its wings and then flew away.”
Wallace then wondered what would happen if he helped the process along. So, rather than waiting for another butterfly to struggle and emerge from its cocoon, he cut open the cocoon himself and waited for the butterfly to fly away. Instead of flying triumphantly away, however, this butterfly crept moodily about, drooped its wings and died. The struggle to get out of the cocoon, Wallace discovered, was nature’s way of helping the butterfly to develop. (3) Adversity is part of God’s plan for producing beautiful butterflies as well as for producing beautiful souls. Of course this is an impartial and imperfect explanation of delayed or unanswered prayers. Truly only God knows all the answers. “Now we see through a glass darkly,” wrote St. Paul, and truly we do.
God’s ways are not our ways. Prayer does work. However, all mature saints know that God often does not heed our time schedule or use methods that we would use and sometimes the most reasonable prayer is answered with a firm but loving, “No!”
This brings us to the final thing to be said. In the meantime, while we are waiting for God’s answer to our prayer, we need to do all we can to provide our own answer to our prayers. If there is something constructive you can do while you are waiting, by all means do it.
There is an old Indian proverb that says, “Call on God, but row away from the rocks.” You have to admire this widow in Jesus’ parable. She didn’t wait for someone else to solve her problems for her. She took responsibility for her situation, and did all she could. That’s a good lesson for all of us.
Don’t give up on your prayers. God does hear and does answer the prayers of His people. Sometimes the answer is “be patient.” Sometimes the answer is “no.” But always the answer will be to our best good. In the meantime, while we are waiting, let’s remember that persistent widow, and take whatever constructive action we can to be part of the solution. If we do, we have Christ’s promise that God will reward our persistence.
1. Harold Ivan Smith, No Fear of Trying (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1988), pp. 134-135.
2. Told in Bruce Larson, ed., The Power that Makes All Things New (Waco: Word Books).
3. Arthur Caliandro, You Can Make Your Life Count (Carmel, NY: Guidepost).