Am I remaining persistent in my prayer requests, or have I given up?

1 Then 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 about men. 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 about men, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'" 6 And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

INSIGHT:  Three giant insights jump out to me in this passage.  The first is our real need to always persevere in prayer regarding the things we believe to be in the will of God.  Second, that for most of us, justice will not come until Jesus Christ returns and all humanity appears before the Judgment Seat of God (Rom 14:10).  Third, that when Jesus finally does come back (v.8), there will be virtually no true saving faith left on earth, exactly like in the days of Noah and Lot!

Why does God delay so long in answering some of our prayers?  There are many obvious Biblical reasons for this; our character in Christ needs shaping, the timing isn’t right, our faith hasn’t fully bloomed, we have allowed sin or worldly pleasure to choke us off, or our motives haven’t been purified, etc.  But there’s a superior reason and it has nothing to do with barriers blocking God’s hand in our life.  After all, those in the hall of faith of Hebrews 11 had no stumbling blocks impeding their faith, and yet the Scripture tells us twice that they died having not seen the promises.

So, if they didn’t receive what they prayed for and what was promised to them, what good was their faith?  What was the point of hoping and waiting for something they never received in this life?  What is the point of you and I doing that?

The main purpose God has for giving us promises and letting us go on and on in hopeful prayer, is not because He first desires to give them to us, but so that He keeps us in a saving bondage to Himself through faith, to the end of our life. God makes us prisoners of hope in Him (Zec 9:12), while distracting us from the devilish traps, foolish delights and vain pursuits in the world, which would rob of us of eternal life. 

In 2021, God directly answered Lisa and I’s prayers with a miraculous gift of $44,000 showing us He wanted me to send the tiny house to NZ.  Soon, I had sent all my possessions to a country I could not enter except by God’s deliverance. Three years later Father directed us to buy land that would not allow the tiny house on it.  What then was the purpose of all that money and trouble to send it over?  That tiny house became an anchor for our faith over those three years of storm winds beating against our faith so severely, while waiting for God to grant us justice and finally put us together in NZ.  Had it not been for the huge sacrifice we made to send it, we very well might have given up in despair and shipwrecked our faith.  God so wisely used that tiny house to keep us committed to His difficult plan and timing, by a great sacrifice which we would not easily walk away from, regardless of how much Satan taunted us.  This is why Jesus demands that we give up everything for Him.  Only those that do will still be holding on when He returns.

God does have a few good “meals” for us here, in answer to our prayers (Mark 8:2-3), but we must remember His priority is to get us Home, not bless all our heart’s desires down here.  For the things He has for us here, we must also face the disappointing fact that “quickly” (v. 8) is much different to God than it is to us.  I took the formula Peter gave in 2 Pet 3:8, a thousand years are like a day to the Lord and realized that 41 years to us is only one day to the Lord, and one year to us is only 90 seconds to Him.  His ways are not our ways, and His timing is certainly not our timing!