Let me start by telling you a story that Paul Harvey told on his radio show

years ago. A young boy went to the grocery store with his mother. She put
him in the seat of the shopping cart as she did her shopping. He was fine until
they reached the cookie section. He stood up on the seat and said “Mommy,
can I have some chocolate chip cookies?” The mom said “No, you are not
going to get any chocolate chip cookies. Sit down!” So he sat back down.
They continued on through the store but on their way back to the cashier they
passed again through the cookie section. The boy stood again and said
“Mommy, can I PLEASE have some chocolate chip cookies?” The mom said
“I told you we are not getting cookies. Sit down and be quiet!”
Finally, when they were approaching the checkout, the boy realized this might
be his last chance. He stood up on the seat and shouted “In the Name of
Jesus, may I have some chocolate chip cookies!” The other customers around
them started laughing and applauding. Several of the customers offered to
buy him some cookies and he left the store with an armful of chocolate chip
cookies.
He didn’t give up. Even when the mom said “You are not going to get any
cookies”
I want to look at a similar story in the 18th chapter of Luke. Let’s read starting
at verse 1.
So the story is about a widow…this means a woman whose husband has died.
We don’t know exactly what her need was. We only know that someone had
done her wrong and she needed the judge to help her. Maybe she was going
to be kicked out of her house because she didn’t have any money to pay the
rent….maybe someone had stolen her only cow…we don’t know. Maybe
Jesus didn’t tell us exactly what her problem was because He didn’t want us to
focus on what the problem was, but how she got her problem taken care of.
In those days, a woman without a husband had very little power. If she had
sons, then they would probably have been going to the judge instead of her.
So if she was going, she must not have had sons that could help her.
She found herself in a situation where she couldn’t get what she needed on her
own and she had to depend on someone else to help her.
So she goes to this judge who Jesus says does not fear God or care about what
men say. He wasn’t going to help her, but the Bible says that because she
kept coming and asking and coming and asking, he finally decided to help her.
You might be thinking, well that’s just a story and it would probably never
really work that way. I can tell you from experience that it does work
sometimes. Because that is what Gabriel does with me. If every time I pass
him during the day he says “You gonna fix my bike?” “You gonna fix my
bike?” Eventually, I get tired of hearing it and go out and fix his bike.
So because this woman didn’t give up…and because she was persistent…
because she didn’t take no for an answer…this woman got the help she
needed.
So Jesus says to His followers: “Look at this unjust judge who doesn’t care
about God or man. If he will help this woman just because she asked and
asked, Don’t you think God, who is good, and righteous and holy and does
care about man, would do the same for His people?” in other words…….
At the beginning of this story, the Bible says that Jesus told his followers this
story so that they would learn to always pray and to not faint. Faint here
doesn’t mean to pass out. Webster’s dictionary says faint means “To lose
courage or spirit” In other words…to give up.
So why do we give up? We pray and don’t get the answer we want and we
assume God doesn’t hear us or is not going to answer us.
Another story I saw is about an old country woman who is the last one to get
hooked up to electricity in her village. She calls the electric company, pays all
the fees, and they come out and install electricity in her house. After a couple
of months, the electric company notices that she has hardly used any
electricity at all. They think maybe something is wrong with her hookup. So
they send a man out to see if there is a problem. The man comes to the door
and says “Ma-am, we just checked your meter and see that you have hardly
used any electricity, is there a problem?”
She says “No, no problem at all. We are very satisfied. Every evening we
turn on the electric lights so we can see to light our candles and oil lamps, and
then we switch them off again.”
The woman was not using the electricity that she had. She believed in
electricity. She believed the electric company when they told her about it. She
went to a great deal of trouble and expense to have her house wired for it. But
she never made the most of the power she had access to.
I think we often do the same thing with prayer…we know about God’s
promises, we have seen and heard about others getting their prayers answered.
We maybe have even had some of our own prayers answered.
But time and time again, when our prayer is not answered in the way or in the
time we want, we lose faith. We give up.
Or first we try to do things in our own strength and when we can’t get what
we need, we pray as a last resort.
In Genesis, Jacob heard that his brother Esau, who had sworn to kill Jacob
years before, was on his way with 400 men to where Jacob was. Jacob was
afraid he and his whole family were going to die.
Jacob told his servants to take cows, and goats, and camels and to go and give
them as gifts to Esau before he got there so that maybe he would not be angry
anymore. But Jacob was still afraid his brother would kill him when he got
there.
That night, Jacob met with the angel of the Lord. The Bible says that Jacob
wrestled all night with the angel and Jacob would not turn the angel loose. In
the morning, the angel said “Let me go. The sun is coming up”. Jacob said “I
will not let you go unless you bless me” The Lord gave Jacob his blessing
and when he finally met his brother, Esau was not mad anymore, but was
happy to see his brother again.
The point is, when Jacob thought the things he was doing were not going to
work, he got a hold on God and did not let go until he got his prayer
answered.
At the end of His story about the widow, Jesus asks “Nevertheless when the
Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” If Jesus were to come
back right now, what would He find us doing?
He started the parable with “men ought to always pray, and not to faint” and
ends with “But what are you going to do?”
Here’s my last story….My grandmother loved redbirds, or cardinals as they
are really named. They are beautiful bright red birds with a little black mask.
They sing pretty and when you watch them around other birds, they seem like
very nice birds…they didn’t fight over the food or try to run off the smaller
birds who might be at the feeder. Anyway, my grandmother loved them and
had me build a feeder for them in the yard a little out from her dining room
window. She would sit at her table and drink tea and watch the redbirds. It
brought her great joy.
I thought about how God has given us prayer. He has made a way for us to
come to Him….a way for us to feed on the blessings that He has for us. A
way we can come and get the things we need that He has and wants to give us.
And as for God, just like my grandmother, He enjoys just being able to have
us around. To be able to watch us enjoy the benefits that He has provided for
us. He wants us close to Him. He wants us to have a relationship with Him
where we come to Him, our good and loving Father, and tell Him what we
need so He can bless us.
God wants us to come and spend time with Him. To tell Him what we need
and want….and to not give up.
He wants us to know, like it says in Hebrews, that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him.