God commands us to pray. “Pray without ceasing” (1Th 5:17). “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving (Col 4:2). “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Php 4:6). The greatest of all privileges is not only allowed, but is even enjoined upon us. To let us pray would be marvelous, but He commands us. Amazing indeed! God urges us to be persistent in prayer. If at first we do not get what we ask for, we are to keep asking. If God, who hears all things, appears deaf to our cries, we are to cry longer.

Jesus told a parable about an unjust and uncaring judge, who finally ruled in favour of a poor widow simply because she wore him out with her persistent pleas. He told that parable, He said, to teach us that we “ought always to pray and not give up” (Luk 18:1). God is not unjust and uncaring, like that judge; but we are to be persistent, like that widow. God never wearies of our asking, even when it appears as though He is not hearing. Astoundingly amazing!

We are invited to pray and God has promised to hear. Great things happen because of prayer. We are commanded to pray by the One who loves us, and reminded that we show Him our love by keeping His commandments. We can “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). Yet, believing all of that, many of us pray so little! That is the most amazing of all! I pray that we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.