Fast food.  Drive-thrus.  Express lanes.  Instant coffee, oatmeal, information, etc., etc.  We live in a fast-paced society where we know what we want and we want it now.  I wonder if we sometimes approach prayer that way.  We ask the Lord for what we want, and we want the answer now.  Maybe we wouldn’t admit that’s the way we feel, and we may not even be conscious of those feelings.  But what happens when the Lord doesn’t answer right away?  Do we become frustrated?  Impatient?  Angry?  Anxious?  Upset?  Does our faith falter? Do we try and take matters into our own hands?   Unfortunately there have been times that I have responded in all of those ways.  And our actions reveal our heart.

Sometimes the Lord does answer our prayers right away.  But what do we do when He doesn’t?  When He seems to be silent?  He calls us to persistence in prayer.

Then He said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’  Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me.  The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed.  I can’t get up and give you anything.’  I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness (or persistence) he will get up and give him as much as he needs.  So I say to you:  Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”  (Luke 11:5-10)

But I call to God, and the Lord saves me.  Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice.  (Psalm 55:16-17, emphasis mine)

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.  (Colossians 4:2, emphasis mine)

“Have you ever grown tired of praying for something or someone?  Paul says we should ‘devote’ ourselves to prayer and be ‘watchful’ in prayer.  Our persistence is an expression of our faith that God answers our prayers.  Faith shouldn’t die if the answers come slowly, for the delay may be God’s way of working His will in our lives.  When you feel tired of praying, know that God is present, always listening, always answering-maybe not in ways you had hoped, but in ways that He knows are best.”1

Don’t give up; keep praying!  He hears, He cares, and He will answer……in His perfect time and His perfect way.

Stacey Poplawski
WOC Graduate

1 The Life Application Bible, New International Version Edition, Tyndale, Wheaton, IL 1991, p.2167.