Books
Complete Works of E. M. Bounds on Prayer
It is said that God always answers prayers.
He responds with "yes," "no," or "wait," but that simplistic theology only begins to comfort us when we are told God's apparent silence should be translated as "wait."
Sometimes we pray and God answers right away. But often when we pray God seems distressingly unresponsive.
When it appears God is not answering our prayer, we must remember that our view is limited by time, space, and knowledge.
God is not limited in any way.
What seems "unanswered" to us may very well be "answered" by Him, just in His timing or in a way we don't necessarily fully recognize.
Luke 18:1-8
The Parable of the Persistent Widow
1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, 2 saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ 4 And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’” 6 Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. 7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find
Often when we pray God seems distressingly unresponsive.
We might be tempted to stop praying altogether.
Jesus, however, encourages us to keep on praying even when we don’t understand why God isn’t responding as we wish.
Persistence in prayer matters, according to Jesus.
Luke 11:8-10
In Luke 11:8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Jesus had just given the disciples the model for prayer in verses 1-4
Then in verses 5-7, Jesus tells the story of two friends.
One goes to the other at midnight and ask for olives because he has guest and has nothing to give them and the friend makes excuses and say well my family is asleep, do not trouble me, that is your problem, then he will shut the door but
Jesus goes on to say in verse 8 that because of your persistence, he will rise and give you all that you need.
Then Jesus says in 9-10
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Traditionally, Luke 18:1-8 is called “The Parable of the Unjust Judge.”
That’s an appropriate name, to be sure.
Recent commentators prefer other titles:
“A Parable on Bold and Persistent Prayer,”
“Speedy Vindication for Any, Who Have Faith,”
or
“Parable of the Nagging Widow.”
Those are fine too, but I’d like to suggest another one:
The Parable of the Squeaky Wheel.
I expect you’re familiar with the saying, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
It’s used in a variety of ways. It could mean,
“The most obvious problem gets immediate attention,”
or perhaps
“The loudest or most persistent complainer gets prompt assistance.”
Something along those lines, anyway.
In Jesus’s parable, a widow in need of justice asked a judge to prevail on her behalf.
But the judge, whom Jesus identified as “unjust” (18:6), refused to help her.
Widows in the time of Jesus were without cultural power, so it would be easy for a judge without integrity to ignore her case, even if she was clearly a victim of injustice.
But the widow was not to be stopped.
She kept pestering the judge until he chose to act, not because of concern for her or the law, but because she was wearing him out by her persistence.
Let’s be clear about something.
Jesus did not tell this parable,
because God is exactly like the unjust judge.
Like the judge,
God responds to requests for help.
Unlike the judge,
God is not unjust.
We can expect God to respond when we pray because God is, of course, supremely just.
But Jesus’s main point in this parable was not the nature of God.
Rather, as Luke says, Jesus told this story to his disciples “about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” (18:1).
Jesus encouraged his followers to pray and keep on praying, just like the “squeaky wheel” widow.
Upon reflection, I find a couple of things particularly interesting in this parable.
First,
Jesus assumes that there will be times when we ask God for something in prayer but don’t get it.
We will find ourselves in a situation rather like the widow in the parable,
where we’re asking for God’s help but God is not obviously responding.
If you’ve done much praying in your life, you’ve surely experienced the frustration of what feels like an unanswered prayer.
Often, God has answered our prayers, but not in the way we prefer.
Or, at other times God is answering but not according to our preferred pace.
Jesus acknowledges this reality by the way he frames the story.
Second,
I’m struck by the fact that it was not directly expressed, Jesus is responding to one particular explanation for the problem we call unanswered prayer.
This explanation claims that God is simply not good.
We cry out for justice. God doesn’t act. So, God must be unjust.
Or so the argument goes.
While this seems logical, and while sometimes it can feel to us as if God is not actually good, He is good, the word tells us in
Psa. 73:1 God Is Good
(For example, see Psalm 77:7-9), Jesus rejects this way of explaining why our prayers are not answered.
It’s not that God is unjust.
There are other reasons (which, unfortunately, Jesus does not offer in this parable, as much as we might wish he did).
there are divine mysteries we will never solve, at least not this side of Heaven.
We won’t know for certain why God doesn’t answer favorably many of our prayers.
It’s not because God is unjust.
And it’s not because we are unfaithful.
Something else is going on, something is known to God but not to us.
This is His sovereign will we live and abide in.
Nevertheless, we should keep on praying.
That is, after all, Jesus’s main point.
When we ask for something that God does not grant,
it’s okay for us to ask again and again and again.
Jesus actually commends a squeaky wheel approach to prayer.
If you’re like me, you’re inclined not to want to bother God with repetitive prayers.
But Jesus says, “Go ahead and bother Me!”
So, even though we won’t ever get all our questions about prayer answered,
we would do well to follow Jesus’s counsel by
praying, praying, and
praying some more.
John Calvin –
Prayer doesn’t change things - God changes things in answer to prayer.
“The conditions of prayer are well ordered and clear—abiding in Christ; in His name.”
E. M. Bounds
When we pause to pray... We step from the doorway of discouragement to the pathway of peace.
We trade worry for worship.
We magnify God and become less intimidated by our problems.
Yes, I want less of my brain power and more of His prayer power in my life.
Let’s Pray
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