Why Pray? The Persistent Widow & the Unjust Judge
Prayers Unanswered
During a random meeting with my disciple leader while I was in college, I was in tears. Something heavy was weighing on my heart when he asked this stinging question: “What would you do if God never saved your parents?” As a natural pessimist, I have often wondered about that, continuing to pray despite discouragement for my parents’ salvation although these prayers were far from consistent. The weight of that statement suddenly hit me like a heavy Sunday afternoon lunch eating twenty bowls of chicken gnocchi at Olive Garden. I’ve been a Christian for six years now and the thought of my loving parents who’ve shown a clear picture of sacrificial love spending an eternity apart from God made me sad, mad, and helpless! Over those past six years I prayed fervently and desperately for my parents, and the next two years I prayed even more - I even attempted an awkward and clumsy gospel presentation - but the burden is still very present after four years. My heart can’t help but either run away from this fact or cry out, “How long O Lord, how long?”
The Powerful Judge and the Powerless Widow
In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus beautifully paints an illustration of contrast, starting with a judge who neither regards mankind nor fears God. Could you even call this man a judge? He didn’t live according to any law morally, nor did he care for the welfare of mankind. Isn’t that the sole purpose of a judicial system? This unjust judge is the only character in the parable who holds any power, and this is clear to Jesus and the audience because in comparison to the widow who holds no power in this age, the judge might as well be God. Although the judge has every reason to ignore this widow, she brings up a personal problem asking for justice. Confronted with a hopeless situation, the widow proceeds with no bribe in hand, no convincing argument, no blackmail, no status or favor to offer the judge, but merely persistence (3). The judge then answers in the following verse with the only reason he gave in: because he was annoyed by her persistence. Without any more explanation to the parable, Jesus continues to the most important comparison, the unrighteous judge and a righteous God.
The Unrighteous Judge and the Righteous God
Jesus quickly points out where our attention should be in the parable:
“Hear what the unrighteous judge says..”
The judge was clear that his motive in granting the widow justice was because she wore him down. If Jesus ended the parable without making this point, we should rightly speculate that our prayer life consists of two things:
a God who doesn’t care about those who pray and..
a God who needs to be worn down with persistence.
But Jesus flips the script and tells us two truths about God that should radically impact not only the content of our prayers but also the heart of our prayers.
God genuinely cares about the desires of his people and..
God will ALWAYS answer with justice.
The Unanswered Prayer We All Needed
I am confident that God will always act justly through the prayers of his people! But what does that mean? We look to passages like Hebrews 5:7:
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
This verse ushers me to the scene in the garden where we truly see the desire of Jesus’ heart in his humanity and the answer of a just God. Let’s not forget the many moments where Jesus “went to a solitary place to pray” in his years of ministry. It’s here we see the struggle of Jesus in the Garden where he agonizes over his calling to suffer on the cross and his desire to “let this cup pass from him.” Talk about sad, mad, and helpless, Jesus was at war within himself!
If this just God cares about “the elect,” wouldn’t he desire all the more the requests of his own son? Yet in all of this we are grateful that God will always do what is just and right for all because in this moment he heard the cries of his own son and brought about justice. He didn’t give Jesus what he wanted, but he gave the world what we needed, a savior.
We see the widow didn’t just get what she wanted, she got what she needed which was justice. When we understand this deeply, we know that when we approach God, he not only loves to hear our cries, the desires of our heart, and the burden of our souls, but we can also trust that God will bring about what we need. The cross demonstrates that loudly.
Imagine grappling with this truth when your parents’ eternity is at stake. My mind immediately runs to the questions:
Does that mean God won’t give that to me?
How would I be ok with the fact that he might not?!?
But this parable runs deeper. Jesus doesn’t point to persistence or even to the substance of our prayers, he points to the one who is holding all of our prayers. This is a God we all can trust. We aren’t left to speculate about an unwilling and distant God receiving our requests, but we see a holy and just God who cares for us enough to deny the request of his own son for our good! A God who cares for your deepest needs, anxieties, and desires who will always bring about justice for those who “love God and are called according to his purpose.”
The Necessity of Persistence
At the end of the parable Jesus drops the mic. I imagine his last words create a hush over the crowd where even the people in the back drop their jaws in awe. I list this same challenge to both you and me:
“Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
What does your prayer life look like? How seriously do you take prayer especially when you don’t see results that you expect or any at all for that matter? Do you believe that God is one who longs to hear your cry for justice in the world around you? When the Son of Man comes, what will he find in your life?
Steven Zhang is the Resource Director in the CO Augusta Office and lives in Augusta, GA with his wife Christine. Steven loves disc golf, his all-time favorite tv series is Community, and at one point in his life he could solve a rubik's cube in under a minute.