by David Chadwick
Prayer. It is such an important tool in our Christian walk. It’s a skill we must tend to and cultivate. Learn and develop. Jesus saw such high value in teaching people how to pray. In Matthew 6, he goes into great detail of when to pray, how to pray, principles of prayer and so forth. He even saw the wrong ways people could engage in prayer and warned people of the dangers of pride sneaking into your prayer life.
So how do you pray? Yesterday, I taught you how to discipline yourself in prayer through the habit of journaling. Today? I want to focus on how to persist in prayer!
Persistence is a way to remind God of who he is. When you pray, you are engaging in a partnership with God in which you become more dependent and he becomes more glorified. When you have to persist for an answer, you become more convinced about what you desire and more reliant on him to come through! This both strengthens your spirit and builds your faith!
The Bible undoubtedly teaches about the need to persist in prayer. Read Matthew 7:7-11. Ask, seek, knock. Or Luke 11:5-11 about the friend coming to ask for something at midnight. Or Luke 18:1-8, the story of the persistent widow. Take note in this particular passage of verse 1, where Jesus says that he tells parables “to illustrate that it is necessary always to pray and not lose heart.” He cared about the lessons learned through persistence. What should we do if we don’t get the answer, you might ask? Keep praying!
Some of you may be wondering if persistence is like nagging God until you get what you want. No! It’s not that at all. What I’ve learned through the years is that persistence in prayer is often just reminding God. A kind of “Oh, by the way…” and then stating your heart once again to the Lord. And he loves it when we don’t give up on something good for us to have.
You could almost think of persistence like a child with his or her parents leading up to Christmas Day. I don’t know about you, but when my kids created their Christmas lists, they didn’t tell me and Marilynn about it one time…they mentioned it two, three, four…fifteen times. That’s persistence!
Persistence allows your heart to keep believing as you learn to wait upon the Lord. Which is a perfect segue into tomorrow’s tip…stay tuned!
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