Always pray and do not give up!

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Food for thought!

Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. This is very revealing. Jesus tells the story in order to tell his listeners the need for constant and consistent prayer. You, just imagine: Jesus telling his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. Do we still need Jesus to convince us of the need for prayer? In other words, are you convinced, just like Jesus is, that you need constant and consistent prayer? Do you still struggle to pray? Does prayer come naturally to you?

When Jesus says pray always and do not lose heart, he is saying, in other words, be in touch with God always. We need to be attuned to the Lord all the time. And the best way to do this is by prayer. Remember that in John 15:5 Jesus told us why we need to stay in touch: I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Another reason why Jesus wants us to pray consistently is that whatever we focus our attention on increases. If you fix all your attention on getting something, you end up getting it, good or bad. What consistent prayer does is that it fixes our attention on something we are praying for. This is what the woman in the gospel reading did: she never gave up on her desire for justice; she kept going to the judge with a plea: Grant me justice against my adversary. Day and night she was always there with her request that justice be made to her. She fixed all her attention on that one thing. Eventually, she got it.

Is there anything you earnestly desire for yourself or for others? Fix your attention on it. And the best way to do that is by transforming your desire into a prayer. When we pray we focus. And focus brings tremendous power. With it, our talents and abilities gain direction. And this will bring you what you want to achieve.

The law of focus is like chasing rabbits. If you chase many at once, you catch none. But if you focus on one only, you get it. If so many things clamor for your attention, bend all your energies to one, and pursue it until you get it. Something wonderful happens when we narrow our focus, says John Maxwell, because our mind doesn't reach towards achievement until it has clear objectives.

That is why Jesus said we must never be discouraged in prayer. Few things amazed Jesus, and this is one of them: whether our faith would stand the long delays and focus needed before we eventually get our prayers answered.