Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
The temptation, of course, was to become weary and lose heart. When prayer did not receive an instant response it was tempting to assume that one was speaking to an unjust judge, too concerned with his own affairs to answer to be bothered, although it was well within his power to set things right. It was hard to pray for things that were obviously good and not receive them. It made it easy to believe that God was morally ambiguous at best and not truly good at worst. It made it easy to fall for the same temptation as Adam and Eve who wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil independently, apart from him.
He said, “There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
Phase one of a good approach to not losing heart is to recognize when we begin to imagine a caricature of God rather than God himself. We know that God must be good since he is the source of all goodness and since he himself is what we ultimately desire in all good things. Our very ability to sense and pursue the good is itself his gift. Therefore, if he does not immediately respond to our urgent requests it cannot be because he isn't good.
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.’”
Phase two of our plan to not lose heart is to plan on the need for persistence. When we sometimes hear of prayers that are answered immediately, precisely when they were needed, it makes us want to believe that all prayers will be answered on a similarly expedited schedule. Sometimes prayers are answered immediately, when this is part of God's plan. But oftentimes, for his own reasons, reasons which we have resolved to believe are good ones, he does not answer immediately. When we don't plan on an immediate response he is certainly free to surprise us with one. But then if we don't receive one we don't succumb to disappoint. We have planned from the first to pray as long as was necessary to either attain or desire or to have our heart changed by God. It has often been said that this purification and expansion of our desire for the good is an important part of why perseverance in prayer is required of us. Does it always seem to us to be a worthy trade for putting off a solution to something that could be solved immediately, something which is often both urgent and dire? Perhaps not, but since we have committed ourselves to believing that God is always good even when can't see it or understand, we believe it in this case as well. And so we don't lose heart. And so we ask and keep on asking.
The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
We now have belief in God's goodness and reason enough to trust him when he tells us to not give up on prayer. But we have still more. We have assurance that he will answer eventually. It may not be exactly according to the form for which we asked. But we know that he is a Father who delights to give good gifts to his children. We know that he will withhold nothing from us that is truly good. He knows even better than we ourselves what will truly satisfy our desires. This is what he has planned for those who do not give up on pursuing him.
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