My husband and I have once again started the New Year on The Whole30 diet. It’s become an annual reset for us as we aim to make wiser choices and exhibit mastery over the desires of our flesh for constant comfort and satiation.
It takes willpower. I’m not going to lie. Just today one minister of Satan left a tray of scones and cinnamon rolls outside my office door. It required discipline to walk past that to the bowl of oranges at my desk.
By the time this snow melts, virtually every American will have given up on their New Year’s resolutions. It’s just too hard or inconvenient to stick with them. It’s painful to persistently practice saying no to the flesh or to persist with anything new or uncomfortable.
But I think God likes persistence.
And I don’t just mean sticking with a fitness or financial goal.
Mostly I think God likes it when we persist in prayer. Somehow He seems to delight when we approach him again and again even if it seems like He has said no or is ignoring us.
When our kids were little, I did not like it. I found it annoying. I wanted them to take the answer that I’d given them and be satisfied. I wanted them to understand that I’m decisive and immovable and implacable. I wanted them to leave me alone already.
But this is not the heart of our heavenly Father.
The heart of our Father, apparently, can be moved. He seems touched and even impacted by the prayers of his children. This is a great mystery!
We see it when Jesus tells the stories of the friend at midnight (Luke 11) and the persistent widow (Luke 18), and again in the account of the Syro-Phoenician woman (Matthew 15).
This lady approached Jesus, desperately seeking help. Jesus ignored her. She came back again. This time Jesus pushed back with a rather abrupt denial of her request. But she persisted.
She came to him, humbly, a third time. And this time, this third time, Jesus said, “Yes.”
This gives me courage to keep on bringing my requests to God. My same old, broken-record requests to which He has seemingly said, “No” or ignored altogether. It’s so sweet to realize that He’s different from you and me. He’s not annoyed or short-tempered or easily angered when I ask again and again.
And maybe, just maybe, this time He’ll say, “Yes.”
