Perseverance. According to Merriam-Webster, perseverance is the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. According to the New City Catechism (question 39), it should also characterize our prayer life, and that might be the single most convicting thing about prayer I’ve ever heard. Even more so than the exhortation in 1Thessalonians to pray with ceasing (5:17), more so than Jesus’ command to pray for one’s enemies (Matthew 5:44), I’m convicted most by this brief answer that we should pray with an attitude of love, perseverance, and gratefulness.
Don’t misunderstand; it’s not the concept of prayer that I find convicting. I may not be the biggest prayer warrior you’re likely to meet, and public prayer might still throw me for a minor loop (which is in itself quite the improvement from the literal stammering, sweating mess that an impromptu request for me to open or close any kind of church function – or even an individual meeting with a friend – would have made of me a few years ago), but I do actually pray. Privately. Quietly. Usually briefly. And rarely for the same thing more than once in the same week. (Honesty here, because I have no business writing if I won’t be honest.). Not to say that I’ve never prayed for the same thing repeatedly, but the exact definition of perseverance is what makes it difficult – the continued effort to do something despite failure. I think it appropriate to define failure here as the lack of a visible effect.
I can’t possibly be the only one who has ever questioned the efficacy of prayer. Does it really do anything to speak our minds and pour out hearts to God, to make our requests known to Him? Well, the whole Word of God says in brief that yes, it really does. How that works with the sovereignty of God, I have literally no idea, despite spending 4-5 weeks over the summer discussing and reading about prayer in a small classroom setting. Regardless of what Scripture says though, sometimes it’s hard to see it as true, and that’s often the question in the back of my mind.
Too, many of the things for which I pray repeatedly are long-term things of which I can’t possibly see or know the effect in the here and now……..the lifelong commitment of my children to the Lord, for the godliness of their future spouses, choices throughout their lives to be marked by wisdom, the continued health of my marriage, etc. That it’s impossible to see an effect now makes it no less difficult for me to keep praying. Even the prayers that are answered on a daily basis – physical protection, job stability, good health and maintained relationships – can feel trite and rote and empty after a few repetitions.
Thankfully, though, we’re not left to this on our own. If this charge to pray with perseverance is the most challenging and convicting, the following might be the most comforting: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26)
Your thoughts on perseverance on prayer is right to the point. It is the hardest thing for me to keep praying for the same need and not see any results. In our instantaneous world we live in, we seem to put God in the same category as an ATM, instant results. But the very fact that you are praying for your children, job, relationships, etc everyday shows your perseverance. Both you and who you pray for will see the results in Gods own time. Your selection of Romans 8:26 is just one of the many verses we need to engrave on our hearts when we are impatient with God.