Seven hundred days.* I have spent the past seven hundred days asking God for something, the same something. "Asking" isn't really the right word. "Pleading" is more like it. With the persistent widow in Luke 18 as my example, I banged on God's door every day with the same request: "It's me again, Lord. Still asking. Still desperate for you to act." For seven hundred days, that door didn't budge.
The judge in the Luke 18 story finally says, "This woman is driving me crazy. I'm going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!" I don't know if that's what God thought about me, but this week, He answered. Loudly. Enormously. Where I had been begging at His door for even just a morsel, He produced a buffet.
The problem isn't solved; it's just that now there's an answer in sight. Like most of life, the solution will come only at the end of a long, difficult journey. It will require tremendous faith. It actually feels like it will require more faith now than ever--faith to hope that this is really the answer, and that it will really work. Faith not to despair if it doesn't turn out like I want it to. But my faith got a promotion and a raise this week, and right now I can believe God for anything.
If you've been pounding on God's door for seven days, seven hundred days, or seven years, don't grow weary. Don't give up. That's the message we learn from the persistent widow. There is value in caring about something, or someone, so much that we bring it up every day before the Lord. There is beautiful growth to be found--earned, really--in trusting that any day could be the day that He answers. And there is a celebration for the ages on the day when that answer comes.
*A rough approximation of two years' worth of prayer, accounting for the occasional sick day, "I'm-on-vacation-and-totally-forgot" day, "I'm-so-tired-of-asking-for-this-that-I-need-a-break" day, taking-my-firstborn-to-college day, or a handful of days when it was too cold/snowy/icy to go out to my prayer track.
Saturday, August 3, 2019
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