The Case for Persisting in Prayer

Hello, tender friends!

These are two of my favorite promises of the Bible:

1. If we in knock, the door shall be opened to us (Matthew 7:7-8)
2. If we have faith, we can say to a mountain to be thrown into the sea and God will throw it into the sea (Mark 11:23, Luke 17:6, Matthew 17:20)

But it doesn’t always feel like that, does it?

As a kid I prayed, fervently, that my uncle would get sober and spare the family the pain of watching him slowly die. It didn’t work. So little flesh remained on his body the last year of his life that he couldn’t sit on anything other than a special inflatable pillow. The face of the pastor who ministered to him the last days of his life was tired and unshaved as said, “He didn’t want to stay. He said the pain was too great, and he wanted to be with Jesus.”

As a slightly older kid I prayed, fervently, that my older cousin in her twenties would survive an asthma attack that left her hospitalized. She was young and otherwise healthy, and I fully believed God would heal her. She surely didn’t want to die. Who dies of an asthma attack with their inhaler in their hands?

The prayers didn’t work. I watched her parents and siblings at her funeral service and wondered how they remained standing.

As an adult, I’m praying for the healing of others, but my prayers are no more effective than those childhood prayers were. I’ve heard people have special anointings for healing, but I’m apparently not one of them.

“But it’s so easy for you, God! You’ve answered prayers that are so much smaller and stupider! And I pray for people to be healed and nothing improves!?” I metaphorically stomp my feet.

“But Lord, you tell us in Revelation 5:8 that my prayers are being stored like bowls of incense in heaven.” (I know that this verse actually refers to the saints, and I’m not calling myself a saint. But I don’t see why God would only store the prayers of the saints and not regular prayers too). “What is the point of this?”

The Lord’s response was 2 Peter 3:8 and physics. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that a thousand years with the Lord is as one day and one day is as a thousand years.

Physics, including gravity and plate tectonics, tells us that some mountains actually do slide into the sea, albeit at a very slow rate. Mount Etna in Sicily is moving towards the Mediterranean at a rate of a whopping 14 mm per year. Scientists don’t know when she’ll actually make it to the water, just that after enough thousands of years it will happen.

I’m not here to debate whether the verse about mountains being thrown into the sea is literal or metaphorical.

I’m here only to report the meaning that I believe God has for me in this moment: that I am to persist in prayer. That in the natural world, the healing may take place at a rate of 14 mm per year and be imperceptible to me. I’m not to be crushed by the waiting, for my perception of time isn’t the same as God’s.

I’m aware that the mountain might not make it to the sea before earthly death occurs. I’m aware I may not see the fruit of any prayer on this side of heaven.

Still, I pray without ceasing.

Ok, that’s all for today, tender friends. Thank you for stopping by, and thank you for sharing!

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