RIVER JORDAN, PALESTINE
XIII
PERSISTENCE IN PRAYER
The Lord will answer.
Everyone who has prayed devoutly and sincerely has undoubtedly experienced at times the keenest kind of disappointment because he has not received an immediate answer to his prayer, Perhaps you have yourself prayed sometimes for something that you wanted badly. It was an insistent, an urgent desire. You felt that you could hardly wait even to utter the prayer. Yet, your prayer has remained apparently unanswered. At such times you may have found comfort in this beautiful Sunday School hymn:
"Unanswered yet? Tho' when you first presented
This one petition at the Father's throne,
It seemed you could not wait the time of asking,
So urgent was your heart to make it known.
Tho' years have passed since then, do not despair;
The Lord will answer you, sometime, somewhere."
This is a beautiful hope, a sublime faith; and every one of us should cultivate such hope, such faith. Moreover, everyone of us should practice such persistency in prayer as is described by the poet in this hymn.
"The prayer your lips have pleaded
In agony of tears these many years?"
For very often, without question, our prayers fail to move the Father, because they are not urged upon Him, nor are they upheld by that hopeful trust which knows no wavering. Jesus emphasized two points in this connection that we should grapple to our hearts.