Why does God sometimes make us wait for answers to prayer?
Luke 18:1
Sometimes, when we read one of Jesus’ parables, we are left somewhat in the dark as to Jesus’ purpose in the parable. Eventually, the Spirit unfolds it and makes it plainer to us, but there are often some residual mysteries concerning Jesus’ intentions. Not so with the parable of the persistent widow. Luke introduced it with Jesus’ purpose clearly asserted: that Jesus’ disciples should always pray and not give up. The word translated give up could also be translated “lose heart” or “faint, become spiritless, be exhausted.” As if one’s spirit could be drained to weak apathy, losing heart to the end of giving up entirely.
Why would this happen? It’s almost certainly because God usually makes us wait before answering our prayers. Why he does this I will discuss in a moment. But first, let us understand the parable.
As is often the case with Jesus’ teaching, he is using a “how much more” argument. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount he cites God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Then Jesus asks the question, if that is how God cares for these lesser creatures, will he not much more care for you who are worth more than birds or flowers? The same thing also with his statement on fathers giving their children what they ask for, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will God give you what you ask for in prayer” (Matthew 7:11). And the parable of the friend at midnight (Luke 11:5-8) is the same: if the friend will get up at midnight and give him the bread, how much more will God give you what you ask?
This parable of a persistent widow and a wicked judge is certainly a “how much more” argument. Jesus tells us that there was a certain judge who “neither feared God nor cared about people” (Luke 18:2). He even repeats this phrase about himself in the parable! Verse 4 says, “Even though I don’t fear God or care about people…” What person would ever say such a thing about himself?! But Jesus is underscoring the “how much more” argument. In the parable, the widow is beseeching this wicked judge day after day for justice against her adversary.
The judge has no commitment to justice and couldn’t care less about the widow. But for the sake of his own peace and quiet he finally decides to grant her justice “so that she won’t eventually wear me out by her coming!” God is infinitely committed to justice for his chosen children who cry out to him day and night. Jesus openly promises that God will see that they get justice, “and quickly!” He ends by the haunting phrase in verse 8, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
The cry for justice by God’s elect usually has to do with persecution at the hands of those who hate them and the gospel they proclaim. Many of God’s choicest servants are arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed, as Jesus predicted that they would be.
Whatever God lays on our hearts, we should keep on praying for it relentlessly, not losing heart, not fainting, not getting discouraged.
But this parable is about persistence in prayer generally. Whatever God lays on our hearts, we should keep on praying for it relentlessly, not losing heart, not fainting, not getting discouraged. The way we do this (based on the parable) is to mediate on the character of God. God is far more committed to this matter than we are, and he has staked his reputation to the eternal well-being of his chosen ones. He will not ultimately disappoint us but will answer all matters in Christ’s richness.
As we analyze our prayers, we can put them into two categories: those God wills to grant, and those God does not will to grant. Concerning those things that God does not will to grant, it might be either because those prayers are fleshly (James 4:3), or simply not according to God’s inscrutable decrees for history. But in the first category, those prayers God does intend to grant, he (usually) requires us to pray with perseverance, not giving up, nor losing heart, nor becoming weak in them.
Why does he make us wait? First, because timing is everything. Saul of Tarsus’ conversion on the road to Damascus happened at just the right time. God has everything measured down to the atomic level. He knows best. Second, God makes us wait to increase our desires for it, to build our intensity. Third, to humble us. Fourth, because God himself waits and exercises patience. Paul says his conversion was a display of God’s “unlimited patience” (1 Timothy 1:16). Recently I saw a church sign with the following statement: “Pray until something happens.” That stuck with me. If the prayer is biblical, and the time hasn’t passed yet, keep on praying and never give up!