Sometimes I wonder if God feels sympathy for a maried woman who hears her husband grunt a few syllables but is clear as a bell, honey where’s my socks? We are content for resilience to be the foundation of our prayer life, until we need something: that drive sus to our knees. Prayer and persistence-Basically if a corrupt judge listens to a persistent plea, how much more will a good god listen to a persistent plea. One way I handle the issue of persistence in prayer is to use a quote about politics from the great sociologist Max Weber, politics (prayer) is the slow boring of hard boards. As much as I do not like the fact, some things take time.
Unanswered prayer is a difficult topic for us. Yes, some try to get around it with silly retorts, as in god said no, but that’s contemptuous of the issue. We deserve better.
Sometimes adages conflict. If at first you don;t succeed, try try again, but the british add don;t make a bloody fool of yourself, or the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.In an age of instant answers, persistence doe snot seem like a virtue any longer.
Let’s first look at the widow. she has few options to power other than her voice, her persistent voice. the judge says that her badgering is giving him a black eye.She has the courage, or maybe the despair, to do anything for justice to be done.
It almost seems to be dropped in but we see the same advice in 2 Tim be persistent.It is good advice to us at any time, but maybe especially in our youth, or when we get downcast aobut not seeing obvious fruit of our labors.
Just as the bible is a dialogue across hundred and hundreds of years, so too is prayer a dialogue, a daily dialogue, between us and God. If prayer says the exact same thing over and over, i think it has been reduced to nagging. I can grasp how praying for a result could end up working to our benefit down the road, but if a healing would violate some divine plan, then i would pray that the plan be revised. One way to go at it is to realize that God’s direct intervention in our plane of existence seems rare in Scripture and reality. instead, god’s work is mediated through the creation, and that includes us. Second, god’s world is infinitely complex. When God would intervene to answer a prayer in a direct way, consider all of the manifold ways that decision radiates throughout the lives of others. I fully sympathize with the counterpoint that a powerful god is wasting resources if they are not moved toward healing of an illness, for instance. Persistent prayer moves us away from seeing god as a 365 day day version of santa claus.
God does not give up on us, so we do not give up on god.albert Ellis said that the “art of love is the art of persistence.” We can include our frustration at unanswered prayer as part of our conversation with God. Part of the idea of discernment is coming to a fuller understanding of the hand of god in events. Like the Garth Brooks song Unanswered Prayer we may come to see that a desperately desired result may not be in our best interest down the road. On the other hand we can continue to come to grips with unanswered prayer haunts us when we cannot do much about the outcome.With process theologians, i do hold to this: god is at work seaselessly to help bring this world to a place fit for us to live. God is always seeking to turn divine vision into reality. Our prayer life seeks to align itself with that divine quest.
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