Luke 18

Today's passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%2018&version=NIV

I love that movie finding Nemo. One of the scenes that gets stuck in my head is when Dory is trying to encourage Nemo after they’ve lost the mask. Nemo is discouraged because they’ve lost the only clue that would help them in the search for Nemo’s son. Dory tries to encourage Nemo to press on. She won’t let him give up.

She says, “Hey Mr. Grumpy Gills. When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do?” Then, she breaks in to song, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do we swimm swimm oh oh oh oh oh I love to swim.”

Believe it or not, the parable in Luke 18 reminded me of this scene and Dory’s catchy little song. This parable tells us not to be discouraged and to just keep praying.

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” (Luke 18:1)."

I have to admit there are times in my prayer life where I feel like a broken record. I’ve been praying for the same person to develop a relationship with God for a couple of years now and I still do not see the results I'm looking for. The prayer lays heavy on my heart and I know God placed it there, but at times I get discouraged. And when I get discouraged and lose heart, my prayer life suffers.

But the parable in the first part of Luke 18 encourages me to just keep praying and never give up. The widow wanted justice and the judge, for whatever reason wouldn’t budge. After the widow pestered the ungodly, unjust judge, he finally granted her request just so she would quit bothering us.

Contrast this judge to God, the perfect Judge. If you’ve been reading Bible with us all year, you’ve learned a lot about God’s character and that God is the perfect Judge. He is righteous and true. He is all knowing and all seeing. He always hears our cries. Our prayers are not a bother; in fact He wants us to pray ceaselessly. He want us to depend upon Him for all of our needs. He wants us to trust in Him and lean on Him. His love is deeper and wider than our tiny minds can fathom. His ways are higher than our ways and His wisdom surpasses all understanding. He is the perfect Judge. He is not at all like the judge in the parable who granted the widow’s request.

If an unjust judge hears and honors the requests of the widow, how much more will our righteous, true, loving and perfect God hear and honor the prayers of his chosen ones? We are his children and he longs to bless us. Our persistent prayers are a reflection of our persistent dependency on Him and our persistent faith in Him. Our persistent prayers indicate that we haven’t given up on God and that we know he hasn’t abandoned us. Our persistent prayers reveal our persistent belief in the power of prayer.

So, you might be wondering “If I pray long and hard enough, will God finally give me a car collection like Jay Leno’s?” Probably not. This lesson has to be applied along with the many other lessons about prayer we’ve studied. God is not a genie in a bottle who fulfills our every whim, but if we seek Him daily our hearts will be filled with a desire to walk daily in his will, and our prayer life will be transformed.

This parable not only applies to our prayer life, but to our faith life. We can’t lose faith. We must not lose hope. The world around us looks pretty ugly and pretty scray sometimes and we might wonder how God can or if he will ever redeem us. But He can and He will in his perfect timing. He will rise again and redeem this fallen world, but in the mean time…Just keep praying, praying, praying…

Today's post submitted by Kelly Coxe