Word of Encouragement (04/13/2022)
Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (Gen. 32:26-28)
Jacob’s prayer at the ford of Jabbok was, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Yesterday, we observed that this kind of prayer stems from approaching prayer “as if everything depended on God”. This makes our prayer intense and urgent. This morning, let us reflect on another aspect of praying with that mindset—persistence.
If we prayed as if everything depended on God, we would not dabble in prayer merely as an option among many. We would not try prayer just for a while to see whether it works or not, ready to move on to something else if it doesn’t fit our timetable. If we believed that everything depended on God, to what can we move on from praying? Again, to pray this way doesn’t mean that we don’t do anything else. Prayer should not be used as an excuse for not doing what God calls us to do. God is not a magical genie to support our laziness. What it means is that we don’t do anything to replace prayer, or do anything without prayer, because we know, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).
Many of you may be discouraged about praying. Deep inside you can’t shake off this feeling that prayer doesn’t work. It’s not that you didn’t try. But you didn’t feel anything and didn’t get the result you wanted. But there is a problem with such an approach—approaching God as if He owed us something. Does He? God is merciful and gracious, for sure. But that doesn’t mean that He owes us anything. I’m sure many of us have run into panhandlers. What happens when we don’t give them money? Some of them start cussing us and lecturing us about our Christian duty to help the needy. We should indeed help the needy but giving money is not the only way. Besides, there is something not quite right about the panhandlers lecturing the passersby about their duty to help them, isn’t there?
Are we not doing something similar when we give God a “chance” to prove Himself to us within the time limit we set for Him? So we try praying for a few days or weeks. We can’t say that we were consistent in our prayers or focused when we prayed. But we still think that God should do some amazing things for us just because we gave prayer a chance. This is not to say that God won’t hear our prayers unless we pray long prayers for a long period. But we should not think that, when we pray, God is somehow on trial. No, it is a privilege to have an audience with God. And we should wait with patience and humility for His answer—however long it takes and whatever it may be.
In Jacob, we see someone who made up his mind to pray and to keep praying until the LORD blessed him. It was not because he thought he had to change God’s will with his persistence; God had already blessed him. In the face of imminent danger, he wanted to be assured of God’s promise to bless him. We have even greater assurance that God will bless us because we are united with Jesus Christ, His most beloved Son, in whom He is well-pleased. We should make up our minds to pray and keep praying with trusting persistence until we see God’s good and gracious purpose come to its wonderful fruition in our lives.