16 November 2019 - just asking

Readings

(Audio)

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.

If the unjust judge will even acquiesce to the petitions of the widow simply for his own sake how much more will our God, who actually cares about us, who needs nothing for himself, answer our prayers? If even bad parents give good things to their children how much more will the our Father in heaven give the Spirit to those who ask? (See Luke 11:13).

We must strive to emulate the persistence of the widow. She perseveres out of self-interest and out of a sense that the judge might change his mind. This is not true of God. We persist because of our belief that God loves us and has more for us than we dare to ask or dream (see Ephesians 3:20). Jesus tells us that we need to ask and keep asking, to seek and keep seeking, to knock and keep knocking (see Matthew 7:7-12), so that in the process we ourselves are transformed. We become steadfast in faith and in hope. We no longer need to rely on what is seen or even on our own limited perspective of time in to have a firm trust in God's goodness.

Jesus will answer. It may not be on our timeline. It may not be in the way we expected. But we can learn to believe that his timeline is better than ours and that his ways, though not our ways, are better.

When peaceful stillness compassed everything
and the night in its swift course was half spent,
Your all-powerful word, from heaven's royal throne
bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land,
bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.

Jesus is still transforming creation anew from within. He is restoring it to serve the natural laws that it was always originally intended to follow. He wants to transform us from within for something still greater. He wants us to behold is "stupendous wonders." The unjust judge simply cannot compare. Yet the world, if they believe at all, tend to think that God is very much like this judge. Let us put the lie to this belief as we live out of trust and joy in the LORD.

For they ranged about like horses,
and bounded about like lambs,
praising you, O Lord! their deliverer.