Pray Without Ceasing

Luke 18:1–8

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18

Daniel 6

As my two-year-old son has grown in his ability to talk, he has also grown in his ability to pester. He’s a professional at continually saying your name until you give him your undivided attention. But even when he is yelling “Daddy!!!” at the top of his lungs over and over again, I love him so much and it makes me so happy to look back at him and reply, “Yes?” 

In Luke 18, Jesus tells a story of a persistent widow. This was a woman who had a very specific request for justice. Jesus doesn’t tell us what exactly she wants justice for, but He does tell us how she goes about asking for it. She pleads with the judge in her town over and over and over again. Although this judge didn’t care about God or what people thought, he granted her justice. Why? Because she wouldn’t leave him alone. 

Jesus uses this story for a reason. If this unjust judge in the story is willing to grant the woman’s request, how much more will our just judge, God in Heaven, grant justice to us when we ask? In verse 7, Jesus says that God will bring justice to those who ask day and night. The question for us is: Are we asking day and night? Are we “praying without ceasing” as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians? We have a Father who loves us and He is happy to look down and say, “Yes?” 

In the same way, Daniel had a pattern of praying every day, even though he was taken as a captive in a foreign country. When the king was duped into passing a law that forbade the people of the kingdom from praying to anyone aside from the king for 30 days, making it illegal for Daniel to pray to God, he had a decision to make. And you know what he did? What he had been doing all along. He opened the windows and prayed to his God three times that day, no matter the consequences. Why? Because no law was going to stop him from his prayer time, from spending time with the God who loved him so much, whom he loved so much. He prayed without ceasing! 

This week, practice praying over and over and over again, even for the same things—which we briefly talked about yesterday! God knows what you need, but this parable of Jesus tells us that there is power in purposefully and repeatedly asking for the same things. Pray without ceasing today!