My youngest daughter, two-year-old Jessica, went through a phase where she really didn’t like to take ‘no’ for an answer. I mean, really. To her, my saying ‘no’ was little more than encouragement to repeat her request, over and over, louder and louder.
Usually, once I’ve said no, I try to be consistent. I know it’s important to stick by what I say and enforce the rules I’ve made. Otherwise, my children will learn that if they just beg, whine, or argue long enough, I’ll give in.
But I have a confession to make. It may not be the best parenting technique in the world, but sometimes, I decide that the battle isn’t worth it. There are times when I don’t really care enough about the boundary I’ve set to be willing to do battle in order to maintain it. So I give in.
When I can tell that Jessica is just being obstinate about not getting her way, it’s much easier for me to maintain my ‘no’. But when it seems that her request is really important to her, my heart is moved to listen.
It’s like the parable of the widow before the unjust judge. The unjust judge didn’t care about her request, but because of her persistence, he gave in to her so that she’d leave him alone. When Jesus told this parable, He made the point that if an unloving human being would be moved by another’s unrelenting request, how much more would God’s heart be moved by the petitions of His beloved children?
It took years before I understood this parable. I was confused by the fact that we sometimes have to ask God many times before He grants something. After all, shouldn’t once be enough?
Sometimes, it’s not, but not because God doesn’t know about our requests. After all, even before a word is on our tongue, He knows it completely. The reason we have to keep asking sometimes is so we—not He—can see how important something is to us.
Many of our requests, we’re not willing to ask about more than once. If we don’t get what we asked for, we shrug our shoulders and move on. Only if something seems vitally important right now do we pray repeatedly. Over time, our urgency seems to fade.
Most of us wouldn’t pray a mere one time for our child’s salvation, or when our children are sick, when we’re sick, or when we have a significant need that it’s obvious only God can meet. But unless it feels like a crisis to us, we usually don’t pray regularly for other things such as missionaries, political issues, or our church’s ministries.
May we learn to persist in prayer until God responds, with yes, no, or wait. Too often, we give up because we get tired of praying. May God build up our “prayer muscles” so that we have the spiritual stamina to pray as long as necessary, until God answers our requests.
For we know that in His perfect timing, He will answer. And He may grant our request precisely because of our persistence.
Luke 18:1—Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.