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Two Devils

Once, two devils were having a conversation. The little devil who is new to the tempting work was overheard saying to the older devil teacher saying, “The Christians have very powerful artillery. Their prayer armory is so strong that they’ve got prayer bombers, hydrogen bombs and stealth planes that will defeat us in no time.”

The older devil replies, “Little devil, you are very right. The Christians definitely have superior firepower than us and they can defeat us anytime with those artillery. But you know what?”

“What?”, the little devil asks.

“The Christians know they have them but they don’t know how to use them,” replies the older devil.

We all know how important prayer is. We know that prayer is all powerful. It is a channel to God Himself, our Father, our Creator God. We know that when we are in need, we can pray and seek God for help. We know that prayer can help build our relationship with God. We know that prayer can defeat the devil in our daily lives.

But equally true is that while knowing about the power of prayer, how many of us know how to use it and are using it effectively to defeat the devil? How many of us are growing in faith through prayer? How many of us are knowing God more intimately through prayer?

Are you?

We are always exhorted to pray unceasingly. We pray or rather we have the appearance of being in prayer, bowing down and closing our eyes and mumbling something in public. But there is much more to it than the actions of praying.

Lesson 1 - Persistence

The first lesson that we can learn from this passage is from the widow. She shows us what persistence really is. And she can teach us a very important lesson on not to lose heart.

A widow in those days is someone who has no position in the society. The early church is always exhorted to take care of widows. Timothy and James write of them that they should be cared for. As a result of such a position, she is always subjected to being bullied. She cannot defend herself nor help herself in anyway.

In this passage, Jesus tells us that she has an adversary. She is being bullied and needs someone to avenge her. As she looks at the judge, we are told that the judge is an unjust judge. This is a double whammy. She is being treated unjustly and she has an unjust judge to call on for help.

If it was you, how would you feel? Would you look at the situation and give up?

She nevertheless called upon the unjust judge for help. And she never gave up. Although the judge ignored her, she kept asking for help to the point that he had a change of heart.

He said that she troubles him and is afraid of being wearied by her continual coming to him. That is persistence. Not looking at how hopeless her situation was but knowing that only he can help her, she continued to pursue her case relentlessly.

Persistence - always pray and not lose heart - is demonstrated in the fact that we have to pray and keep praying and not give up regardless of how hopeless the situation around us may be. The widow kept going to the unjust judge, a seemingly hopeless situation. She knew that he was the only one who can help her. We must pray with the same attitude, that God is the only one who can help us. And keep praying we must until we have an answer.

That is persistence. How often do we pray relentlessly, continuously, even though it appears that God is not answering yet? How often do we give up after a few times of asking? How often are we influenced by our surrounding situation and give up on God by stopping our prayers?