PERSISTENT PRAYER

When I lost my aunt 2 years ago, the inevitable question in my heart was whether she would have lived if I had shown greater faith. I lived with significant guilt that I never showed her how much I appreciated her much more than I did before her death. I remember crying at midnight, praying and pleading with God to strengthen her and spare her life throughout that period but in spite of everything, she died. Rather than bringing hope; every sermon I heard on healing was like salt on an open wound. Now I felt spiritually attacked and harassed whenever I read verses about Jesus healing the multitudes or verses like Isaiah 53:4 and James 5:15. And I was convinced my prayers were powerless.To be honest, I tried to hide behind the cliche that God knows best  but deep down inside me I was angry at God.- yes I was.The attributes and expectations I had set upon God were not fufiled and the almighty and powerful God  obviously had some situations beyond his control. 

Our spiritual enemies want nothing less than to convince us that God is far-off, distant, and unwilling to respond to our prayers. In situations like this, we are tempted to doubt God’s existence, His love and promises instead of Trusting and counting on His blessings in the past and on His character. From our human perspective, God’s response or lack thereof can make the lies of our spiritual enemies feel real. But God wants us to persist in prayer (Luke 11:9- 10). Not because we want to get our way. Not because He’s hard to please. Not because He delights in our pain. Persistence has a way of purifying our lives of any idolatry. Ultimately, prayer means acknowledging that only God is God. He wants us to give Him our everything, and He wants to be our everything.
Prayer isn’t supposed to be simply a crisis response or a passing thought. It’s a position of consecration before the Lord, a place of continued dwelling, or as Colossians 4:2 reminds us,an act of devotion.Prayer is not just what God does for you, other people and situations.Prayer is also about what God does in you.If you keep praying, even when the heavens seems like brass and God seems as deaf as a post then that it the time you grow in your faith.Although you may not see that particular prayer answered,you do see God's work in your heart and in you life in a far deeper way.Finally,I realised from this experience that prayer pays off  because we grow closer to God and have better understanding of his will.  Persistent prayer means staying facedown until we see God’s answer -not necessarily the answer we want.

Stay Inspired
Uhanan Mimi