God, Are You Still Listening?

...Hope For Imperfect Prayers

(This post first appeared as an article at desiringGod.org)

Does God really listen to our prayers? Does he really hear us when we cry out to him?

Sometimes we pray for a long time about big things, like a health issue or a prodigal child or a difficult work situation, and things don’t get better. We wonder if God’s been paying attention.

I prayed for my wife regarding a life-threatening disease for 27 long years. We prayed and prayed, but her condition only worsened. Why aren’t you answering, God? How could it be true that you have “heard my voice and my pleas for mercy” (Psalm 116:1)? It doesn’t feel like you have “attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19).

Perhaps my faith wasn’t strong enough. Maybe I wasn’t good enough. Such questions assaulted me like a tribunal of vicious accusers. They wore me down, leaving me doubting and discouraged.

Persist in Prayer

“How many of us can say we’ve prayed single-mindedly for something huge we were looking to God for?”

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I continued to look to God’s word for encouragement. There was certainly no shortage of it. For example, Jesus told the people “a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). This was the story of the persistent widow who only received an answer because she kept coming and asking — she refused to give up. Jesus then asked, “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?” (Luke 18:7).

Is that the sort of persistence in prayer that’s required? Many of us who have prayed for years for the same thing have sometimes lost heart amid the ups and downs of waiting for God. And then we’ve wondered how God could possibly answer our inconsistent prayers. This is how the accuser can use God’s word to discourage us.

Faith in Prayer

Jesus is also clear that faith in prayer is vital. He’s bold in his promises about what will happen when we pray in faith. Jesus said,

“If you have faith and do not doubt . . . if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (Matthew 21:21–22)

How many of us can say we’ve prayed that single-mindedly — without doubting — for something huge we were looking to God for? If we had, this passage tells us that we’d have seen the answer and been left rejoicing rather than discouraged due to our doubts and double-mindedness (James 1:6–8). Many of us likely feel like we’re lacking that kind of faith.

Never Good Enough

So what do we do when important passages like these leave us struggling with self-recrimination rather than encouraged amid lengthy battles in prayer? Will God only answer our prayers when we measure up to such impossible standards like praying day and night or having faith to move mountains? Such teachings might leave us thinking that we’re just not good enough.

But perhaps that’s exactly what Jesus wants us to realize. Perhaps the liberation we long for from that tribunal of accusers is that very admission: We are not good enough! Our prayers aren’t good enough. And there is nothing in our life with God for which we are good enough!

Boast in Your Weakness

Yes, God certainly looks for faith. Yes, we must persist. Yes, earnestly seek God to believe and endure. But even as we do, we recognize that we’ll always be deficient in faith and deficient in persistence on this side of heaven. Yet, this should not hinder us from embracing the reality that when “this poor man cried . . . the Lord heard him” (Psalm 34:6).

“Because Jesus has earned his Father’s ear, we can rest assured that God hears our every prayer.”

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We need God’s help to endure in faithful prayer when things are not going well. The most confident and steadfast saints put no trust in the level of faith they attain, but only trust that Jesus himself is “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). They know that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Prayerful saints trust Jesus to be our “advocate with the Father,” who covers our sinful inconsistency and unbelief with the very blood he shed for us (1 John 2:1–2).

Jesus Fills What We Lack

This gives us boldness as we persist in crying out to God, even though we know that our prayers are never good enough. God more than makes up for our inadequacies when our trust rests first in the person of Jesus, rather than first in our own disposition in prayer. Yes, the disposition matters. But the decisive factor is God’s riches of mercy and grace to meet us in our need.

And speaking of God’s mercy, God certainly did answer all those prayers for my wife, when in his perfect timing, she finally received a kidney transplant in 2015. We are daily grateful for God’s gift of life to us!

We aren’t good enough, but Jesus is. And because he has earned his Father’s ear, we can rest assured that God hears our every prayer.

© 2017 by Ken Peters

The Grace of God's Guidance

I'd like to do a one-question survey to see how people would respond to what is likely a little-read passage in the Old Testament book of Numbers. I'd ask, What's your first impression when you hear the phrases "at the command of the Lord" and "kept the charge of the Lord" and "according to the command of the Lord" repeated nine times in six brief Bible verses?

Christians sometimes tend to view commandments in the Old Testament with a bit of a sideways squint as though we're nervous of getting caught up in legalism. We don't like defining our spiritual lives with do's and don'ts. We like to focus on grace and on freedom in the Spirit. Too many repetitions of "at the command of the Lord" can feel like Old Testament living according to old covenant laws.

But why does there need to be a distinction between "the command of the Lord" and the grace of God? Could God's commands actually be an expression of His grace? 

When I most recently read Numbers 9:18-23 where the phrases above are repeated nine times, I was struck at how the great grace of God shone forth! Go ahead and look it up and see how those six verses impact you. Or check out how it feels to read all nine phrases quickly in succession...

v.18 - "at the command of the Lord"
v.18 - "at the command of the Lord"
v.19 - "kept the charge of the Lord"
v.20 - "according to the command of the Lord"
v.20 - "according to the command of the Lord"
v. 23 - "at the command of the Lord"
v. 23 - "at the command of the Lord"
v.23 - "kept the charge of the Lord"
v.23 - "at the command of the Lord"

As I was pummeled by these phrases one after the other, I thought, isn't it great that God directs and leads His people in such clear ways! How wonderful that He condescends to give His people such clear instructions so that they'll know how to remain close to Him!

Jesus understood this. He saw God's commandments as a confirmation of our relationship with Him and a means of assuring ourselves that He loves us. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 15:15) and "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." (John 16:10). 

To obey God's commands indicates that we value His guidance and trust Him as our Leader, and our obedience to His commands is an indication that we want to stay close to Him. That's why the repetition of all those phrases in Numbers 9 should lift our spirits! Every instance of those phrases is a reminder that God wants to reveal Himself and what His will is, and wants us to walk with Him and Him with us!

This should take the heaviness out of God's commandments because it means that God is not interested in obedience for obedience's sake, but for relationship's sake. He never intended for His commandments to be a burden. "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3). John went on to write that God's commands are not heavy because He has given us victory over the world's resistance to God's will through faith in the One who walks so closely with us in this world (1 John 5:4-5).

So what does all this mean? It means that the way to draw near to God is to walk in His will and His ways, and that requires moment by moment attentiveness to Him.

We may find this quite natural when facing big decisions, but it can also be appropriate when approaching smaller everyday decisions like whether or not to see a certain movie or to make a sudden purchase or to address a certain issue with someone. Why not seek God's counsel? His answers may sometimes be both immediate and obvious, but sometimes He may surprise us, as I think we are sometimes too quick in assuming we know God's thoughts – or don't need God's thoughts – regarding some decisions we face. The point is, we want to obey God, and sometimes we take for granted that we know what His will may be.

So when you're wondering what to do in a particular situation, or you're facing a decision for which you want to know God's will – that is, His command, if He is Lord of your life – have TALKS with the Lord...

T - Thank God that He cares about you and the details of your life, and the details you're bringing to Him.
A - Ask God for direction when facing big decisions (eg- Lord, do you want to me take that job offer?), as well as for some of the fairly ordinary decisions you face (eg- Lord, do You want me to buy this new coat?). 
L - Listen carefully as you wait for God to answer. He may answer through Scripture, a circumstance, another person, an impression you have, or in various other ways. For big decisions, it's always wise to seek confirmation from someone you respect.
K - Keep God's command! Once you hear from the Lord, it's important to obey Him if you want to maintain a close walk with God. 
S - Seek God's Strength. Ask the Lord to help you so that you can obey His commands according to His grace rather than trying to obey Him by your own efforts. Because when you rely on God for strength, your walk with Him becomes even closer and He is even more glorified in your life.

© 2016 by Ken Peters

Fiona has a new kidney!

After over 25 years of kidney disease that eventually led to kidney failure, and after nearly eight years of diet-restricting, routine-disturbing dialysis, this last week has been one of the most momentous weeks that my family has ever been through. Though the preparation for this past week seemed to progress by inches for about a year, the resolution of it all culminated in one lightening-fast week! And at the end of it all, Fiona has a kidney that used to be her brother's and a level of kidney function equal to (or in some cases, even better than) the masses of people who live their lives with two healthy kidneys!

As I look back on this past week, I'm conscious of a number of encouraging truths that have been in play as God has been at work in our situation. Here are a few that have meant a great deal to me...

• Miracles can be medically applied. We must never belittle the miracles of medical science and of what is achievable by medical methods. And we must never be ungrateful when God uses doctors to answer prayers for healing. If the ability of surgeons to provide kidney transplants to people in life-threatening situations is not a gift from God, what is the source of such an ability, or of any other medical wonder?
• Prayer makes a difference. As Fiona went into surgery, I immediately began updating Facebook and texting many of the people I have on my phone's contact list, keeping people posted regarding what was happening from the beginning of the surgery to the the beginning of Fiona's recovery. And about two and a half days after the transplant was performed, Fiona's nurse came into her room announcing Fiona's latest blood-test results and exclaiming that she had never seen anyone reach normal so quickly after a transplant! I believe that such exceptional results were a gift from God in response to the exceptional number of prayers being expressed for Fiona.
• One can do the job of two. While appreciating the fact that Solomon said that two are better than one (Eccl. 4:9-12) and that Jesus sent His disciples out in twos, there is at least one way in which God designed one to do the job of two! One of the major measuring sticks they use to assess kidney function is to measure a person's creatinine clearance. Someone with healthy kidneys has creatinine clearance levels of 80-100. After receiving the transplant on Thursday afternoon, Fiona's level has been below 100 since Saturday evening! And today, the creatinine clearance level of her one kidney has gone down to 84! God knew single kidneys would be capable of that when he created mankind, long before kidney transplants were even conceivable.
• "Greater love has no one than this..." I've always felt on good Biblical ground when praying for a miraculous healing for Fiona, and I've both prayed and fasted on many occasions for Fiona's healing over the last 25+ years. I've asked God to heal Fiona's kidneys, revive her kidneys, resurrect her kidneys, re-create her kidneys and even transplant kidneys from heaven. But when God chose to give Fiona a kidney from her brother, it was no less Biblical than giving her a kidney straight from heaven's kidney-bank. In John 15:12-13, when Jesus commanded us to love one another, Jesus went on to expand on that by saying that "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Fiona's brother Tim has not laid down his actual life for Fiona, but he has laid down the life of one of his kidneys for Fiona. He has given up a healthy piece of himself so that his sister could live a healthy life. Some might hesitate to make such a sacrifice. Not Tim. He was ready to do it with his utility knife if the doctors weren't able to help out. Thankfully, the doctors were involved.
• God does as He pleases. Over the years of praying for Fiona, I have gradually grown more and more comforted by a growing conviction in the sovereignty of God. To put it simply, there was a time when Fiona first became sick that I might have actually believed that human activity had more to do with the fulfillment of God's will on this earth than God's activity. In other words, Fiona not being healed meant that I or we needed to pray harder, pray more or believe more -- the problem can't be with God, but must be with me or us! If I had remained in that theological camp, I think it would've crushed me by now. But I simply no longer believe that anymore (though I'm tempted to go there from time to time). God is responsible for the fulfillment of God's will, not me or us. God is not some needy being, waiting for help to arrive. God has a reason for sending or allowing pain as much as He has reasons for the blessings He sends us, and I believe that this 25-year wait for Fiona's healing was as much about our growth as such struggles were for so many Biblical characters who had to persevere in trust through far greater difficulties (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and David come to mind, to name just a few). So as we pray for relief, God chooses how and when to answer according to His purposes for what we're going through, and He wants us to trust Him through it all.

So I'm continuing to learn that even when it appears that God isn't doing anything at all about what we may have been praying passionately about for years, He is in fact doing a great deal and has a plan in mind. And it's all intended to be for our good and for His glory, as this past week's culmination of circumstances has certainly been! I truly thank God for that.

© 2015 by Ken Peters

No Other Option

What do you do when a big-time need gets worse and worse as you pray for years and years? Is there ever a time to stop asking God about it? Is it possible that God wants the fact that He hasn't answered "Yes" to such prayers to be understood as a "No" and that we should should stop asking Him further about it?

My short answer to that is: there sometimes are such times, but each person needs the Holy Spirit to make that very clear to them.

My longer answer is: the only verses in the Bible that I can think of in which someone is told to stop praying is God telling Jeremiah not to pray for a people whom God had already decided to judge for their sins (Jeremiah 7:16; 11:14). In those cases, God knew that His fatherly discipline was what was clearly needed in the situation and there was no point praying for an alternative approach. God made that very clear to Jeremiah (see short answer above).

But it's a big Bible, and I can't see that happening anywhere else in Scripture. What I see more of is God's call to keep on praying and to not give up!

I see Samuel saying, "As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you" (1 Samuel 12:23).

I see David saying, "As for me, I will call upon God... Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice" (Psalm 55:16-17).

I see Jesus saying, "Keep on asking for something to be given and it shall be given to you" (Matthew 7:7, Kenneth Wuest's "Expanded Translation").

I see Paul saying, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). And I see Paul giving us a wonderful glimpse in Colossians of his convictions regarding persistent prayer.

The overwhelming message of the Bible is that we must not give up asking, even if an answer is slow in coming. In fact, Jesus went out of His way to make sure that we knew what to do when answers didn't come quickly. Luke tells us that "He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1) and then proceeded to tell them a story about a widow who had to persist in prayer because an answer was slow in coming. Jesus was basically warning us, as if to say, "This happens sometimes, so don't give up when it does."

So until I get a clear word from God telling me otherwise, I've got to persist! No matter how I feel about the delays or the circumstances, I've got no other option except to pray and keep on praying when answers don't come. Giving up is not an option.

"And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him?" (Luke 18:7). That's something we can count on.

© 2014 by Ken Peters

When weak prayers are strong

You pray and pray and pray, and then what? People encourage you to persevere. Knock and keep on knocking, they say. You wonder if they could possibly know how weak your prayers feel after all these years? But you keep praying, though the passion in your prayers feels a shadow of what it once was. You wonder if God is even listening as your prayers seem to have lost their potency, and you're no longer even sure what to pray.

And then God speaks: "...the Spirit helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Romans 8:26).

What a relief that God sent a Helper to come alongside us (John 14:16)! My prayers may be weak, but He can make them strong. However weak you may feel your prayers have become as they dribble off your lips after uncounted repetitions, be encouraged that the Spirit has been sent to lift our feeble prayers to greater heights, ensuring that they reach God's ears with groanings that echo our anguish and with a clarity that contradicts our confusion.

That word "helps" is a big word with even bigger implications. The Greek word originally used is sunantilambano, and literally "speaks of the action of a person coming to another's aid by taking hold over against that person, of the load he is carrying. The person helping does not take the entire load, but helps the person in his endeavor" (source, vol. 1). 

In fact, I would dare to suggest that such Spirit-assisted prayers are potentially more effective than the lofty prayers of some who may be so confident that they utter their prayers without relying on the Spirit for His help. That is why God has no difficulty hearing what we consider "weak" prayers. Because by the time they reach His ears through His Spirit's intercession, there is nothing weak about them!

© 2014 by Ken Peters

Inspired to say...

The writer of Psalm 91 boldly declares, "I will say to the Lord, 'My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust'" (Psalm 91:2). In light of such a verse, it sounds quite certain that he really did say that, and that he truly believed what he said.  He said, "I will say to the Lord...", and then he spoke of his trust in God and of his intention to find his security in Him -- all in the shadow of some very serious troubles that he then goes on to mention in verses 3-8: a fowler's snare, deadly pestilence, night terrors, arrows and destruction!

And yet in my much smaller struggles and challenges, I can find myself wondering if I'm prepared to say the same thing. When I'm facing the fowler in my life, can I always say to the Lord what the writer of Psalm 91 said? Can I always say, "I will say to the Lord..."? When things are going wrong all around me, will I say with confidence that I consider God a safe refuge and a secure fortress? In other words, do I really trust God?

To make this question more real, imagine that I just received a large unexpected bill, and just noticed an unwelcome noise under my van, and also just got saddled with a truckload of work with an imminent deadline. Will I then say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust"? "I will say" sounds so certain, so declarative, so confident, even though troubling circumstances can so easily create doubts in us. But "I will say to the Lord" sounds like all that confidence is in God because of who He is and what He promises to those who love Him: "I [God] will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him." (Psalm 91:15). Such confidence in God doesn't need to be worked up by struggling people. It's a confidence that's inspired by who we know God to be and by what we know He's capable of doing!

So whatever I may feel like, and whatever my circumstances may feel like, I'd be wise to look to the God "who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32) and to join the psalmist in wholeheartedly declaring: "I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust!"

© 2011 by Ken Peters

My struggles living in an I.T. world

I'm not entirely sure why, but I've never been a huge fan of all the spanking new information technology that's constantly out there, or with the ever-accelerating momentum of today's massive I.T. marketplace. At times I wonder if it's because I feel so technologically incompetent that I feel too intimidated to learn how to operate all those new devices. And at other times I think it's because I'm such a cheapskate that I can't bring myself to pay for all this new stuff that gets so old so fast.

But I've never been entirely satisfied with those reasons. They've never really fully expressed what I feel like is going on inside me every time I hear about the latest thing. It can't simply be intimidation, because I've happily grown quite capable of using some extremely helpful (although admittedly simple) forms of I.T. technology over the years. And I know it's deeper than just being tight with my money, because I'm quite happy to spend money on many other things that I could easily live without. There's something else. Speaking in a general sense, I think it's that there seems to be such a collective headlong rush to get the newest and the latest that we end up neglecting the oldest and the truest. Speaking personally along the same lines, I've found that I'd often rather Google something or Facebook someone than simply sit down and pray and read God's Word. And the more distracted I get, the more easily I end up preferring the pursuit of an Ipad (or how about a plasma TV) over the pursuit of how to obey what I heard God say during unhurried times with Him. Yes, too often it feels like these new technologies can create such attention-demanding distractions that it's difficult to avoid feeling like the I.T. world is at odds with God's kingdom. In actual fact, it doesn't have to be that way. When used wisely, these new technologies represent huge opportunities to help advance God's kingdom.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Trained to do the Impossible!

I'm so grateful that God hears us when we pray! And it's such a thrill to read a description of how the Lord thunders down from heaven, lightning flashing and hailstones flying as He routs the enemies of King David in answer to his prayers (Psalm 18:6-15)! Then verses 17-18 say, "He rescued me from my strong enemy" and "the Lord was my support". It's such a spectacle of God's power in those opening verses of Psalm 18 that it's tempting to think that having "called upon the Lord" (v.6), we can then just sit back and watch God do His thing. He'll just come and rescue me because He delights in me (v.19).

But it's a long psalm, and if I read on, I get a different perspective. "For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? The God who equipped me with strength... [and] trains my hand for war... For You equipped me with strength for the battle" (vv.31-39). Sure it's God who "made those who rise up against me sink under me" (v.39), and who "made my enemies turn their backs to me" (v.40), but if I'm to apply this psalm to my own life, it's supposed to be me who "pursued my enemies and overtook them" (v.37). In other words, God is not interested in me being an unassertive spectator as I passively watch Him do His thing! He wants me as involved in the answer as I am in the cry for help so that I can grow through the experience of being trained by Him.

That doesn't mean that I end up answering my own prayers. No, it means I get the thrill of participating with God as He enables me to do the impossible as He answers my prayers -- "For by You I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall!" (v.29). It very well may be that God wants us to patiently wait in hope for Him to answer our prayers (eg- Psalm 40:1), but I don't think that necessarily means that He wants us to passively wait in hope for those same answers. Some might say that (in a New Testament context) it's simply the act of praying in faith amidst the battles we face that constitutes doing the impossible, but I'm more inclined to believe that God wants us actively taking authority over things in the areas we pray about, and that's how God wants to help us to do the impossible as we "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, [and] cast out demons" (Matthew 10:8).

So I'm asking myself: Am I available to be trained (v.34) and equipped (v.32) and engaged in the battle as I ask God to defeat the enemies I face? Because it seems that He doesn't want to do it without us!

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Overcoming cynicism regarding prayer

Today I read a brief comment on prayer that I found extremely helpful. In the 20+ years of praying for my wife Fiona, I have sometimes struggled to maintain an unwavering conviction regarding the power of prayer. But I was encouraged to discover in the brief quote below that I'm not alone in such struggles and that there is a cure for them.

Paul Miller, who wrote the book A Praying Life, is doing an ongoing interview on the blog of Desiring God. In his answer to the second question he was asked, he spoke about cynicism in prayer: How would you describe the problem of cynicism, and what is your advice to those who are struggling with it?


"Cynicism is my biggest struggle in prayer. It is a quiet, cold rationalism that dulls the soul and just kills your walk with God. It is hard to even identify or name our cynicism because it just feels like being realistic. It says things like, 'What good does it [prayer] do?' or 'It [the answer to prayer] would have happened anyway.'

"I think we are particularly susceptible to cynicism in the Reformed world because we are an intellectual world. We are rightly concerned about our ideas being correct, but we don’t always pay attention to our heart being correct.

"I think without a doubt that the principal cure for cynicism is to become a little child and learn to cry out for help—to realize that I am a lost coin, a lost sheep, and a lost son.

"One other cure for cynicism is purity of life. Any time there is a miss between how we present ourselves as Christians and what we are really like when no one is watching, that opens up a door for cynicism. So a lifestyle of repentance and confession goes a long way to cure cynicism."

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Trademarks of Prayer (or... The Need for Persistence doesn't mean I'm Wasting my Time!)

There's something about myself that I'm all too well aware of:  I struggle to persist. Just look at how many posts I've written about perseverance and trust. That's not because I know so much about it. It's because I'm still trying to learn how to do it amidst all the stuff that comes up in life.

This is especially true for me in the area of prayer. I get discouraged easily and feel defeated quickly if an important answer seems slow in coming. And after twenty years of disappointing doctor's reports about Fiona, I've even grown a bit confused about prayer. I've sometimes wondered what it accomplishes. Bad things happen even though I pray, and then good things happen in other areas I haven't even prayed about. And then I see godly, biblical examples that put me in my place. Biblical examples like the apostle Paul who never let life's trials or troubles convince him that prayer was pointless, and who made prayer an absolutely essential part of his life no matter how many disappointments came his way.

This is obvious in the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians. Paul wrote that letter while he was in prison, and yet he clearly describes God as being in charge of his life as well as of the hostile world around him. And there are three places in that letter to the Colossians where Paul expresses how committed he was to not allowing the reality of persistent troubles to discourage him from believing in the value of persistent prayer.

Paul wrote in Colossians 1:9 that "from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you." Wow. "Not ceased"!  Ceaseless prayer characterized Paul's busy, trouble-filled, fruitful ministry. Then in Colossians 4:2, Paul exhorted the Colossians to "continue steadfastly in prayer". Another translation (NASB) says in that verse to be devoted to prayer. Those are more strong words about prayer: steadfast, devoted. That means Paul didn't want them to give up praying when answers seemed slow and troubles seemed overbearing. Then in Colossians 4:12, Paul described a man named Epaphras as "always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers." Always. Laboring. Earnest (meaning zealous and heartfelt). Here's a man who didn't treat prayer like some casual listing of requests expecting immediate gratification. He knew he was in a battle and was prepared to persistently struggle for the victories that would only be won through prayer.

None of these verses suggest that we ought to be surprised or frustrated when prayers aren't answered immediately. Paul used words like "not ceased" and "steadfast" or "devoted" and "laboring" for a reason. I'm still learning that prayer requires persistence so that the praying I do changes me as much as the things I pray for. To Paul, we're to be: Always in prayer -- Devoted to prayer -- Steadfast in prayer -- Labouring in prayer --  Earnest in prayer. And the one who is determined to make those words the trademarks of their prayer life is the one who is far more likely to find value in praying, and will see the answers that just don't come to those who don't persist.

© 2010 by Ken Peters