The Power of Prayer

In the book of Luke, there’s an amazing story of a woman’s faith that never stops amazing me. Let me show you, I’m sure it’s a scripture you are familiar with Luke 18:1-8

Here, 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 this judge refused to mind this woman but finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

Let’s just think for a moment about the impossible task before this woman. The bible says in verse 2, that the judge does not fear God and he doesn’t care about man. How can you beg that kind of person? Even if you say ‘I beg you in the name of God’-He doesn’t fear God; if you say ‘please pity my children’-He doesn’t care about people. So, begging this man was a hopeless thing to do.

Knowing that this was a hopeless thing to do, why did she stay put? Well, that brings us to the reason Jesus was telling this story in the first place. Look at the last part of verse 8 “…However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” The primary thing Jesus wants to teach us with this parable is faith.

Contrary to what we think that if it’s faith it has to be now! Faith also fuels persistence. Nobody does anything persistently expecting a result when they don’t have hope of a result.

The woman wasn’t looking for a plan B, C, or D like I would. She believed that something will happen, anything but she’s not leaving without an answer. How noble will it be if I can trust my Lord and look intently and expectedly to him as she looks to the hand of this judge until at last justice was delivered to her?

If only we will dare to trust God, and pray hard in faith with great trust in the infinite power of our God, in His infinite love and his infinite wisdom. He will move the mountain on our behalf and make the impossible possible.

It is my earnest prayer that the Lord will increase my faith this morning and not just me alone but yours as well until he becomes our only hope and in prayer, the hope is expressed without ceasing.