Reflection: Persistent Prayer

By Rev Mandy Smith

“I believe in the sun,
even when it’s not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when He is silent.”
Found on a concentration camp wall after World War II

Luke begins Jesus’ parable of the unjust judge with these tender words: “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not lose heart.”

Jesus knew that for years the people had been begging God to free them from Roman occupation. Where was the answer to their prayers? Some around Jesus were tired of praying and already plotting to take matters into their own, violent hands.

So Jesus told this story of an uncaring judge who, because a widow keeps hounding him, finally grants her the justice she demands, simply so she will stop.

We can relate to that woman, asking and asking and asking again. When we tell God our needs and don’t see him answering, it makes sense that we might begin to wonder: “Does God hear? Does God care? Is God powerful? Is God even real?”

Jesus feels the need for this parable because the people are feeling God’s slowness to answer their prayers. Jesus’ assurances that God acts quickly are in response to the reality that God apparently doesn’t act quickly. On the one hand Jesus acknowledges God’s slowness, on the other hand, he says God works swiftly!

Is Jesus out of touch with reality? Contradicting himself?

But he’s setting up a distinction here—the unjust judge responds grudgingly. On the other hand, our God wants to answer our prayers. When his answer seems slow, we’re tempted to question his goodness, his power, his existence. As much as we have permission to cry out, like the Psalmist, asking God “Are you listening?!”, God asks us not to fall into the temptation to make assumptions about his motives.

Jesus is reminding us of the surely-ness of God.

Something remarkable takes place when a human being can stretch across two realities at once: I am in pain AND God is good. As CS Lewis writes, “[The cause of evil] is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Jesus ends the parable with, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

According to our perspective, we’re the ones waiting on God. But these final words of Jesus show us God’s perspective: He’s waiting on us, longing to find faithful hearts, open to these possibilities:

“I may not understand but God is working.”
“I may not see it but God is powerful.”
“I may feel abandoned but God is close and God is good.”

Our choice to come back to God, again and again, is itself a choice to trust in his goodness.
Whether or not we feel it.