God listens to prayers. If there is one thing that the Bible makes abundantly clear, it is that God listens to prayers. Way back in Egypt, when “the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help,” the Bible says, “Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2:23-25). God heard their prayers and acted.
Echoing the truth that God listens to our prayers, Psalm 34:17 promises that, “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.” And, if you have someone’s cloak as collateral for a debt, you are instructed by God that you must return it before the cold of the night comes because, “that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate” (Exodus 22:26-27). God hears our prayers, especially when we are being treated unfairly, and God acts. The Bible is clear.
Jesus even tells us this whole parable about a woman who, like those Olympic gymnasts who were abused by their team’s physician, goes to someone in power asking that things be made things right. She seeks out justice. Those abused women sought out justice. And after being ignored again and again, and after persistently asking, again and again to receive some justice, for things to be made right, both the women in our parable and those gymnasts were finally heard. It is because of their persistence that justice finally came. It is because they never gave up making their requests known. They made themselves the squeaky wheel. Jesus teaches that if even a corrupt and faithless judge finally gives in and listens, how much more will God?
Now, I am convinced that Jesus could have, instead, told a parable about the five year old who says, “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom” until she finally gives up the important thing that she is doing and answers the child. If a Mom listens to that sort of nerve scraping request, how much more will God listen? I would just like to point out that Jesus is actually requesting that you be annoyingly persistent in your prayers. It is the one time in life when being annoying is appreciated. There is a certain amount of faith or trust found in the person who annoyingly prays over and over again that justice might be served and things be made right again. It is a faith that says, “Even though it did not happen the first time I asked, I know that you, O God, will hear and act.”
And, that is where I think that I fall short in my prayers. When I pray, I think that I unintentionally picture God as being like the unjust judge in the parable. You know the unjust judge. He hears the requests of the widow again and again who is desperate for things to be made right, but to him, she is like a mosquito. She is small and annoying, with little power to affect much of anything. She is easy to brush off as unimportant and of little consequence. She is easy to dismiss, and so he does. And, I think that is how I, unconsciously picture my relationship with God. I am just an annoying little mosquito to God. My requests, when considering the enormity of the concerns of the world, seem like nothing. But, unlike the widow, I tend to ask once and give up, uncertainty coating the top of my prayer and blinding me to God’s response.
One day, while learning to be a chaplain, I found myself alone in a room with a failing, unresponsive patient on a ventilator, with tubes and lines running everywhere. “Why was I called up here?” I asked myself. “What good will any of my prayers do?” I left the lonely room without saying a word.
When I mentioned to my spiritual mentor that I did not understand why I was called up to that room, there was no family around to whom I could minister, and the patient was almost certainly brain dead so my prayers would literally fall on deaf ears, my mentor, who was a kind but firm nun responded, “Who ever said any of this was about you? What happens to this patient is up to God, so we pray to God. We pray over and over again to God precisely because we have no control over any of it. We pray to God because we believe that God listens.”
One truth that I have learned about praying over and over again is that when we actually pray again and again, we do not lose heart. The Bible explicitly says that, “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” There is something about praying again and again that reinforces our trust that God will hear and God will do something. How will God respond? I have no idea. Will God do what I want? Only God knows. But, by choosing to leave that room and choosing to not pray, I was embarrassingly revealing that I had actually lost heart. I had lost faith. I had lost the trust that God would hear and do something.
And, in a world that seems like it is falling apart and there is nothing that we can do about it; it is easy to lose heart and to lose faith. In the Bible, right before Jesus tells this parable, he had just talked about the dark days ahead. He had just talked about the last things, and I imagine that the disciples were just standing there; looking around at each other dumbfounded, wondering, “What is the point of it all?” This parable is Jesus’ answer to those of us who see the world falling apart, who want it all to be right again, but who cannot possibly see how that is ever going to happen anytime soon.
“Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them,” Jesus promises the disciples.
“What happens is up to God, so we pray to God,” the nun instructed me. “We pray over and over again to God precisely because we have no control over any of it. We pray to God because we believe that God listens.”
We pray persistently because God hears. We trust the Lord.
When a pastor friend of mine discovered that he was suffering from a tumor the size of a volleyball in his body, his wife asked all of his closest friends to pray. But, she quite explicitly stated that she did not want any weak and pathetic prayers. You see, she knows us pastors all too well. She knows how we develop these eloquent prayers that sound faithful, but lack anything bold. She knows how pastors are too scared of over promising and under-delivering. She did not want any of that weak pastoral garbage. She wanted bold prayers, asking that things be made right. She wanted prayers asking nothing short of a miracle. She wanted prayers that would lead to the saving of his life and the saving of his family. He could not leave their two boys. He could not leave her. She only wanted the boldest of prayers from us.
And, so I prayed. I prayed for him to be healed. I prayed for the tumor to disappear. I prayed that those boys not grow up without their father. I got over my natural tendency to pray, “Whatever you see fit, O Lord, please do.” Now, there is a time and place for those prayers, of course, Jesus prays one in the garden of Gethsemane. “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). But, she told us this was not the time for such a prayer.
So, I went against my natural instinct, and I prayed boldly. I prayed persistently. I prayed again and again, and I still, to this very day, pray again and again.
The result of such bold prayers has not only been a glimmer of hope as he moves forward through the God given gifts of effective treatments with skilled, professional hands, but also a trust in my own heart that God will listen and God will act. Again, do I know how God will answer those prayers? Of course not! But, how God responds has nothing to do with me. The only thing I need to trust is that God listens and God acts, just as the Bible says God has always done in the past.
You see, Jesus deeply desires that we not be people who have lost heart. Jesus deeply desires that when the Son of Man comes, he will find trust in his people…a deep trust that the Lord will listen and that the Lord will make things right. Because, it is true.
We have a Lord we can trust!
We have a Lord who will go to any extent to make things right. We have a Lord who will die on a cross in
order to make this broken world right again.
We have a Lord who cares deeply about justice and grace. We have a Lord to whom we can pray again and
again; who will listen and who will act.
Be persistent in your prayers. Do not lose heart. Be as annoying as possible for the sake of justice. It is OK; go ahead; Jesus wants to hear your annoying voice. Your annoying voice is music to the ears of the Lord who listens.
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