the unjust judge

Persistence might mean many different things to many different people. To persist in prayer and not give up does not mean endless repetition or painfully long prayer sessions.

Always praying means keeping our requests constantly before God as we live for him day by day, believing he will answer.

Persistence always starts with a belief. It's impossible to be persistent in anything if you don't believe in something. I believe that every day we need to be persistent in our beliefs. Whether it's your relationship with God and a belief that he will help you...or a belief that you will be successful someday.

You have to believe. Persistence is just wasted energy when there isn't belief involved.

Jesus tells a parable in Luke 18 about a persistent widow. Jesus told his disciples this parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

"In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually come and attack me!'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"  (Luke 18:2-8)

This parable is awesome...

This widow came to the judge nearly every single day...his answer was always no...over and over again...but finally one day, he was just tired of her coming because he knew that if he didn't grant her what she wanted, he would have to deal with her every single day.

The amount of persistence she showed was very admirable.

The crazy thing is that an unjust judge, someone who feared God and didn't care about what other people thought, responded to the constant pressure. How much more will a great and loving God respond to us?

My challenge to you is to be persistent. Persistence helps people grow in character, faith, and hope.

Identify what your beliefs are and be persistent. If you have a request for God or want something in your life to change, you have to be persistent with it. You can't just pray to God once a week for the things you want.

One of the things that I try to persistently pray for is discernment. I want to make sure that I am always honoring Christ in the things that I say, think, and do. If you looked through my journal, you would see that prayer request over and over again because I know that when everything I am doing is honoring to Christ, that is when I truly feel fulfilled. Nothing else even comes close.

Notice that I said, 'I try' to persistently pray for discernment. It's not easy to be persistent. There are so many distractions that get me thinking about other things all the time. Plus, life happens and usually my prayer request are changing all the time.

I want you to think about one thing that you want to be persistent about. Write it down, and put it someplace where you will see it daily. Pray about it every time you see it, and watch yourself grow in character, faith, and hope.

This isn't not going to work. Have faith that it will, and it will. Our greatest growth comes when we are persistent.