not persistent enough.

LUKE 18:1-8

1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 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? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

i love this parable.

the way Jesus uses this analogy of a cold and hard-hearted judge who yields to a voiceless widow's persistence to show the even greater magnitude of God's willingness to listen is crazy. not only that, i am reminded that prayer is not easy. prayer life is so frustratingly hard, that i find 95% of the time i let myself succumb to the numbness of not praying. i end up wanting to not pray. in the beginning of the school year, i guess something happened and my prayer life was on fire (compared to before). i loved to pray, i looked forward to praying at prayer meetings because each time, i swore i could feel the wind of the spirit gushing through and within me that helped me to pray. i was tight with God- He heard me, i heard Him.

& then what happened? life. of course. suddenly, that gushing wind passed, and i was no longer able to keep praying, let alone stay awake. thus, the disappointment of not being able to pray in a constant string of words kinda just deflated that prayer-high. i thought it was something that i could master, but it's not. i was reminded recently that everyone goes through bumps and bruises with prayer. sometimes it feels as though God is like a hard-hearted judge who just doesn't want to listen. no matter how many times i want to open the bible, meditate, and just spend time with my Father, that lack of spiritual high is what stops me. it's so deceptive. i pray that i would learn from the persistent widow, that i'd keep being annoyingly persistent with prayer until something happens.