Persistence

Lately I've been reading through Luke. Something that seems to keep popping up is the idea of persistent prayer. The idea of continually and constantly asking God for something until He gives it to you. And I must says, it has me thinking.

I've been unsatisfied with my own prayer habits for years. I've often felt I don't pray enough, and most of my efforts to revise this have ended poorly. However, recently I've started something new. I set up on my phone three events that happen everyday, and sure enough everyday at 8:30, 2:00, and 7:30 my phone starts beeping telling me to pray. It has been working well so far, I've only skipped a couple times. My hopes though are that soon I won't need the alarms.

But back to the idea of persistence.

So Jesus says a few times that we should keep on asking God for things in prayer, and he will give it to us. He said, "Ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened." There is another example in Luke 18, and a few other places. But is this really true?

When I was in fourth grade I had a little girlfriend, Christina. However, at the end of the school year Christina was going to move away to Eastlake. I prayed every night for a long time that her house in Eastlake would burn down and that she would have to stay in Euclid. That didn't happen.

Why though? Was I doing something wrong?

I believe God want us to be persistent in asking Him for things because it gives us time to analyze our own hearts. Are the things we are asking for good things? Or am I praying that God will give me something that I will use to replace Him, or at least distract me from Him.

Truly God would like to bless us, but are the blessings we are asking for really what we need? If so, God will provide. If not, He may very well say, "no."

Keep up your persistence in asking God to bless you, to bless others, or whatever it is you are petitioning God for. I hope you get it, but if you don't, I hope God is teaching you something by saying, "no."