Bothering God
The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ) 1864. Art by John Everett Millais.
Do you feel like you are bothering God when you pray? Is it possible to bother God with our prayers? Is God looking to get more from us than he is to give? When it comes to prayer, is it that God cannot be bothered, or is it that we do not bother to pray?
Our requests are never a bother to God. When we come to God in prayer, God listens and God delights in answering us justly.
In Luke chapter eighteen Jesus tells his followers what is often referred to as the parable of the persistent widow, or the parable of the unjust judge, “to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” (Luke 18:1, ESV).
The purpose of Jesus telling the parable was to illustrate to his followers that unlike the unjust judge, God is just and approachable and we should never give up in making our requests known to him, because he will hear our prayers, because God is just and because we have faith to come to him and ask.
Jesus 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.’” (Luke 18:2-5, ESV).
The unjust judge responds favorably to the persistent widow, because she was persistent, and because he did not want to be bothered and disrupted further by her request. If this is how an unjust judge responds to persistent requests, how will a Just God respond to the requests of his children when they faithfully and persistently come to him and make their requests?
And then 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?” (Luke 18:6-8, ESV).
May God find us faithful as we come to him in persistent prayer, and may we find God faithful in responding favorably to our requests as we “bother God” with our prayers.
A Collect for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 24): “Set us free, loving Father, from the bondage of our sins, and in your goodness and mercy give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
Begin the month with a #dailydevotional. I have created a #devotional book for each month, a devotional for every day of the year, and offering them for #free by subscribing. Get a link to #Grow365: #October2022—A #Daily Devotional here: www.robbiepruitt.com.
The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ) 1864. Art by John Everett Millais.
