Persistence is prayer (Luke 18:1) is the key to finding answers.

SCRIPTURE: Luke 18:1 (NIV)

Jesus told his disciples…that they should always pray and never give up.

STORY from the Reader’s Digest:

I look at a stonecutter hammering away at a rock a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the 101st blow it splits in two. I know it was not the one blow that did it, but all that had gone before. 

OBSERVATION:

Persistent in our prayer life is not seen as a noted virtue. The average person gives up long before an answer comes. We walk away saying to ourselves that, after all “No” is an answer. I don’t think that would set well with Jesus. What part of “never give up” don’t we understand? “Never” is a very long time! We are too quick to give up, walk away, accept our situation, convincing ourselves that the situation we find ourselves in is just the way God wants it. Really?

“Never giving up” is the divine goal of prayer life. Hammering away at whatever the problem … regardless of how hard or difficult the situation … hammering away knowing that in God there is hope against the immovable circumstances of our life. Our hope is in God and that he desires the very best for us.

And so, we continue to place before God our desires, in accordance with his divine will, day-after-day-after-day, laying bear our soul and trusting God that in his time the answer will be forth coming. Never give up … never give up … never give up!

Don’t you find it interesting in the story of the fishermen who had fished all night and didn’t catch anything that when Jesus shows up he asks them to cast their nets once again … ON THE SAME SIDE OF THE BOAT that they had been using all night. And, oh what a catch they had! Never give up … keep casting those nets!

PRAYER:

To you we continue to turn for help and direction. We will not give up. We will pray continually. We will never stop hammering away at our situation. We turn to you in hope and the promise of answered prayers. We ill never give up!