In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encourages his followers to find a quiet place alone to commune with the Lord daily (Matthew 6:6). There is an aspect to prayer that is private and personal between ourselves and the Lord. This fact reminds us of the importance of community in our prayer life. However, if we were to take a poll of the other people in our Gospel Community or DNA group, most people in the group would likely indicate that they too struggle with prayer. Many of us tend to think that other people have a better prayer life than we do. In his new book What If I Don’t Desire to Pray? pastor John Onwuchekwa gives some helpful insight for followers of Christ who are struggling in their prayer life:ġ. This parable raises an important question, what if I don’t desire to pray? Many of us are not like the persistent widow in this story we pray once about something and then give up. If we were to be honest, we would have to admit that we often struggle with prayer. The focus of this parable is to drive us to ask how persistent we are in coming to the Lord in prayer.
He delights to give His people good gifts (see Luke 11:9-13). This is not how the Lord relates to His people. He doesn’t want to provide her justice, but because she won’t leave him alone he decides to grant her wish. Many of us focus on the way the judge relates to the widow in this parable.
It is important to point out that Jesus uses this parable as a way to show his hearers how they are to approach God in prayer, not to show how God relates to us in prayer. He says, “because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice, so that she doesn’t wear me out by her persistent coming” (v. The parable indicates that for a while he was unwilling to provide justice to the widow yet, later the judge decides to provide justice. In the story, Jesus tells about a widow who pleads for justice from the judge in her hometown. One of the main truths Jesus addresses in this parable is the disciple’s posture in prayer. On Sunday we continued journeying through our Kingdom Stories series by looking at the Parable of the Persistent Widow from Luke 18:1-8.
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