A-Prayer-For-You

Let’s be honest.  I am always learning about prayer and have a lot more to learn.  I have many mentors in my life who excel in their prayer life and I have an unhealthy way of comparing myself to them.  We are coming up on finals week and most students are revisiting prayer given the substantial importance of their comprehensive finals.  I wanted to turn our attention to Luke 18.

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

God is Not Tired of Your Prayers

Did you see what happened here?  God wants us to come to him and pester him; ask those questions over and over.  The heart of God in this text is he never grows weary from hearing from you even if you’re saying the same thing over and over again, asking for the same thing over and over again.  We are not unwanted guests. We cannot wear out our welcome. It’s impossible.

Coming up on the holidays, have you had that relative/friend that just didn’t know that it was time to leave?  Like for instance, you are cleaning up the table and all the dishes while waiting for the last people to leave.  It is not that they are unwelcomed in your home.  Its just that time is up.  That doesn’t happen with our heavenly Father.  He isn’t tired of us.

God Hears Us

2 Chronicles 7:14-15 “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.”

What place? That place where God’s people have humbled themselves before him. That place where we have been repentant. That place where we have sought the forgiveness of sins. On that place, God hears, and he responds. His eyes are there. His ears are there.

Chris-and-ChristenChris Wilson is the director of the Baptist Student Union on the campus of Missouri State.  After traveling in a traveling ministry called No Longer Quiet for 11 years, the Lord brought him back to his old alumni where he was first discipled.  He has a passion for discipleship, missional living, and the church.  More info at http://www.springfieldbsu.org