Chuck Huckaby is a pastor and serves as an associate editor with Chuck Colson’s WorldViewChurch.org

Persevering Prayer

It’s easy to pray and give up. Probably we all have. Today I’d like to talk to you (in the second person as opposed to the normal “third person” for a book review!) about prevailing in prayer from God’s Word and in reference to one book on prayer that stands out for me.

People who buy books on prayer do so because they (as we all do) want to pray and get our answers right away! At least, I do! Seriously, do you know anyone who buys a book on prayer because they want to hear God say “No!”?

We’re the “instant download” generation, after all. We expect to press a button to request something and see it “downloading” in less than a second. The other day I purchased an online book and the “download” link wasn’t working. My first impulse (at 30 seconds into the transaction) was to demand a refund! If God doesn’t answer us in a few seconds - do we want to demand a refund?

I expected my purchase to download without a glitch.

Prayer should be that way, shouldn't it?

God’s promises should be that way, shouldn’t they?

Consider this incident in scripture:

What if...

1. You had a direct promise from God for a great blessing and then...
2. Nothing happened.
3. Everything you thought you were supposed to try to pursue God’s blessing went haywire showing you the futility of your attempts.
4. Yet God still kept promising to do something for you.
5. Finally - almost a GENERATION later (25 years) when you’d absolutely run out of schemes... God promises the same thing ONE MORE TIME.

Would you still be there to receive God’s promise or would you have been long gone?

That’s the story of Abraham no less.

How are we on 25-year perspectives in trusting God and continuing to pray and trust God despite the disappointments?

I can’t say I know anyone who’s written a book on prayer besides Paul Miller, the author of A Praying Life.

I knew him when many of the stories he relates were just beginning to unfold. 20 years or so later, he records how God worked through many heartaches to bring blessing our of chaos.

He and his wife, Jill, had a large family anyway and one child was both autistic and developmentally disabled. To this day, she has to use a computer to speak.  Back then, she was a struggling little girl who I doubted would ever emerge from a wheelchair.

If someone had said to me …. “Chuck, here’s a crystal ball that shows me that Paul is going to die of a heart attack from the stress,” I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Having a special needs child alone would be difficult. But he was running a missionary organization, raising children, had his father who started the organization and their church die, and then he even left the ministry he’d help start after several years to return to seminary and finish his M.Div.

But - and his book is about this - years later all the adversity and disappointment has turned into blessing... his daughter with many challenges regularly ministers with him, and all the adversity and disappointment became stepping stones along the way to his ministry today. I can testify for and with him: God does work all things together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28)!

It goes without saying that I recommend this book because I know the author has LIVED IT OUT, and he offers suggestions that emerge from his struggles and questions instead of from the perspective that he has somehow “arrived”. His work portrays in realistic fashion that the God who showed Himself strong for Abraham is the same God who demonstrates his glory in our lives – through our weakness and trust in Him.

Persevering in prayer means wrestling in God in prayer when the answer keeps being “no” or “wait”. It means developing a 25-year perspective on what God is doing and being faithful in the meantime.

Yes, we’ll see answers along the way. Yet many times we won’t. Often God’s answers will surprise and humble us when they finally arrive. So the lesson is … keep praying.

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