The Power of Perseverance in Prayer

Overcoming Doubt and Discovering God's Generosity

Several times throughout the Gospels Jesus addresses the subject of perseverance in prayer with his disciples. Whenever he does he uses the illustration of asking an unresponsive or stingy person.

“And he said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything'?” — Luke‬ ‭11:5-7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“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.''” — ‭Luke‬ ‭18:2-3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

We usually read parables to discover what God is like. In most of them we find that he is like a woman who is searching for her lost coin, a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to pursue 1 lost sheep, and he is like a king that opens his banquet to the "sat upon, spat upon ratted on..." and not just to the elites of society. All wonderful qualities!

But in the stories on perseverance we find God being compared to someone who would not be considered a virtuous person. Why is that?

A.B. Bruce, in his book The Training of The Twelve*, suggests that the reason Jesus uses these illustrations is because his students and others listening to him often believed that God was unresponsive and had to be prevailed upon before he would give. He was, for many of them, a distant God.

I think every disciple of Jesus can relate to that. After all we all profess to believe that God hears us when we pray, and that God "owns the cattle on a thousand hills" (which is to say he owns everything), but in spite of those profession many disciples frequently experience a different reality in their prayer lives. Instead of receiving and hearing from God many are left wondering if God answers prayer at all. So their experience of God contradicts their professed belief about God.

I think the reason for that is because our true beliefs exist in the subconscious regions of our lives; that is, the place from which automatic actions flow. So while we profess to believe that God is a prayer answering and generous deity, in our subconscious we don't really believe that is the case. That is to say, we doubt God. And the doubter, as Jesus' brother said, "being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord" (James‬ ‭1:7-8‬ ‭NRSV).

My main man Dallas Willard expresses the nature of this double-mindedness perfectly in his book, Knowing Christ Today*. He wrote:

[T]he “double-minded” are, as we say, “on again, off again,” they are not able to receive what they are asking for. They are unable to act upon it. One day or hour they are asking God for wisdom, and the next day or hour they are relying on themselves or others. While they are asking God, they have in the corner of their mind the thought that God isn’t going to give them what they need, so they must take care of themselves. They are really relying on two different and incompatible things. And when they are trying to get wisdom on their own, they are thinking about the possibility of God giving it to them. On both sides they are undercut by their inner uncertainty about the reliability of God and God’s goodwill toward them.

This is why perseverance is necessary.

Jesus is not saying that we should persevere in our prayers to prevail upon God, but we must persevere to prevail upon our own doubting mind. Because as we begin to experience the generosity and responsiveness of God, those subconscious doubts will turn to smoke, and they will be replaced with the powerful knowledge of experience. You will then not only believe that God is responsive and generous, you will also know!

So pray as one that is doing war with the subconscious doubter within. Pray and look for the ways God has responded and then say to yourself, "Told you so!" Soon you will discover what many of the great pray-ers of history discovered. God delights to give to his children. I have a prayer book called The Valley of Vision*. One of my favorite prayers in the book is called "Meeting God." Here is how that prayer ends:

Strengthen me to give thee no rest until Christ shall reign supreme within me, in every thought, word, and deed, in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the world, works by love, fastens me to thee, and ever clings to the cross.

We need the help of God to persevere in prayer. This could be a good place for you to begin if you want to experience the true power of prayer. You can pray this prayer with confidence knowing that the one you are asking is eager to give you all things that lead to life and godliness. Then begin to expect the Holy Spirit of God to reveal the life of Jesus Christ in you in increasing measure. As you do this you will ask more, and you will receive more, because it's only natural to ask for great things from a great God.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Do you have a different understanding of those parables? Please comment below and share it with me.

*NOTE: This post contains affiliate links to the books referenced. Should you choose to use these links, I may earn affiliate commissions at no additional cost to you. Thank you for reading; I appreciate your support!