If you are the parent of a small child or are ever around small children, you know the all-to-familiar frustration that comes from the constant barrage of questions or seemingly endless repetitions of “Mama” or “Da-Da.” In my own sinful weakness, so often my response to my son’s endless requests for my attention is irritability, frustration and a heart that ends up wishing he would just stop asking. My response is usually something along the lines of, “if you ask one more time you are in trouble and you are definitely not getting what you ask for.”
However, when it comes to the heart of God toward his children in prayer, the dynamic is entirely different. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about a persistent widow who, after endless persistence, wins the favor of a judge. The point of the story is that God WELCOMES our endless persistence in prayer. He even goes so far in Isaiah 62:7 to call his people to give him NO REST from our prayers–to literally PESTER him in prayer.
I pray more and more that I would see God in this light and that we as Harvest Church would as well. That we would be an audacious, bold people who engage prayer not as those scared of the Father’s scornful reply but as those welcomed children who have heard their Father beg them to come often to him in prayer.
Day One Prayer Guide:
• Pray for God to awaken your heart to a greater desire for Him.
• Prayer for God to grant you a hunger for prayer.
• Pray for God to unify Harvest Church as a family as we pray together this week.
