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Luke 18:1-3 (NIV)
1Then 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 what people thought.
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 what people think,
5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
Jesus uses a parable to tell His disciples that they should always pray and not give up. The parable tells of a widow who keeps coming to a judge seeking justice. Each time the judge said no, she returned on another occasion with the same request. While we do not know the number of times the judge denied the widow’s request, we do know that she returned so often that the judge finally said yes.
No doubt the judge realized that the widow was going to keep coming back. That she was not going to give up. Not wanting her to continue being a nuisance or inconvenience to him, the judge granted her request. As Luke 18:5 states: “I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me.” (NIV)
Like the widow in the parable, we must always persist in prayer. We must, however, know that God is different from the judge in the parable.
Unlike the judge, God wants us to come to Him with our requests. And unlike the judge, God does not see us as a nuisance or inconvenience. Why? Because God loves us.
God wants us to come to Him, and to keep coming to Him, to tell him about what is going on in our lives. God wants us to tell Him about the things that concern us. The things that may seem unfair. The things that make us cry. The things that make us laugh. God wants us to talk about the things in our lives just as we would talk to a close friend or loved one.
Unfortunately, praying can seem like a job when we do not form the habit of praying daily. And praying can be hard to do when we do not see the importance of including God in every aspect of our lives.
God wants us to position ourselves to encounter Him through prayer.
By praying and being in constant communication with God, we come to know about God’s love for us. We come to know that God wants the best for us.
By praying and being in constant communication with God, we develop a close relationship with God. This close relationship with God strengthens our dependence on Him. It strengthens our trust in God. And when the setbacks and disappointments of unanswered prayer try to test our faith, we will know exactly what to do. That is, we will pray and not give up!
Matthew 7:11 states: If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (NIV)
Except where indicated, scripture references are from the American Standard Version (ASV), Darby Translation (DARBY), or King James Version (KJV) – all public domain.
