Part three in a series on persistence.
Seven times in a row, Elijah fell to his knees.
Grooves were worn into the boards upon which John Wesley knelt.
John Hyde’s heart shifted from one side of his chest into the other, so great was the intensity of his intercession.
Amidst a generation of people who are too busy to pray, stories like these seem more like fairy tales than real life accounts. We can hardly find minutes, let alone hours, for prayer. So when I hear about men who devoted significant time and energy into prayer, I can’t help but wonder,
why?
What made them pray like that? Why did they pray for a thing over and over?
Were they afraid God hadn’t heard them? Did they have nothing better to do with their time? Or was it that they knew something about prayer that we, modern day Christians, have forgotten?
Elijah Prayed Like This:
At the end of 1 Kings xviii, we find Elijah praying on the top of Mount Carmel.
He was praying for rain to return to the land, but, when he raised his head, nothing had changed. There was not a single cloud in the sky.
I think most of us know what that feels like.
How many times have we prayed without answer? Asked without receiving?
We generally get discouraged when that happens. Not Elijah. Elijah got back down on his knees and prayed again.
Why? Why would he do that?
· Perhaps he thought God hadn’t heard him.
This mountain prayer session directly follows the contest between Elijah and the four hundred prophets of Baal. God had just sent down fire from heaven at Elijah’s request, consuming not only the sacrifice but the water and the stone altar besides. Clearly, Elijah knew God was listening.
· Perhaps he had nothing better to do.
The truth is, he didn’t. King Ahab was feasting, all Israel was gathered together, and Elijah, the victorious prophet, had climbed to the top of the mountain to pray.
Elijah considered prayer to be the most important thing he could do.
· Perhaps he knew something we don’t.
Apparently, he did. Because Elijah kept praying long after most of us would have given up.
He prayed though he was tired. He prayed though there seemed to be no answer. He prayed though it was hard.
Long after we would have assumed that God didn’t want to send rain, long after we would have given way to distraction, Elijah was still praying.
Seven times he told his servant to ‘go again’ and look towards the sea.
“Finally, on “the seventh time, [the servant] said, “There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!”
So [Elijah] said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot, and go down before the rain stops you.’ ”
Now it happened, in the meantime, that the sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy rain.” (1 Kings xviii. 44 – 45, NKJV)
Do you know what Elijah did?
He prayed again and again and again. He prayed seven times. Most importantly, he prayed until he prevailed.
In the Hebrew culture, the number seven symbolized completion. Elijah prayed until he no longer needed to pray because it was done.
The Prophet persisted in prayer.
Can We?
It would be so easy to say that times have changed, that we live in a different world. However, while things may be different in some ways, I’m sure the Christians of old had their fair share of long and busy days – Elijah included.
It would be so easy to say that people have changed, that those Christians had something special that we don’t posses. However, though we may not have tasted this kind of prayer yet, James v.17 tells us it is possible – for Elijah was just a man, with a nature like ours.
“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.” (James v.17)
The verse says that Elijah prayed fervently. The Greek word, translated fervently here, conveys the idea that Elijah prayed until he prayed. He didn’t pray once, he prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed.
Praying until he was praying earnestly. Praying until he prevailed in prayer.
It took time. It took persistence. But it wasn’t something that only Elijah could do.
Praying with Persistence
Elijah is not the only example of persistent prayer in the Bible. Scripture is filled with men and women who prayed until they prevailed.
They knew something we seem to have missed:
Prayer takes persistence.
In Luke xviii, Jesus told a parable about a widow who went again and again to plead for justice from an unjust judge. Luke xviii.1 says that Jesus told the people this parable “to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
Notice that He didn’t say that they should pray until they lost heart – as many of us do or have done. Rather they were always to pray and not to lose heart.
You could say, that He told the parable so that they would learn to persist in prayer.
This is consistent with the lesson we find in the parable itself:
“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And [Jesus] said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them?” (Luke xviii. 2-7)
‘Will not God give justice to His elect, who cry to Him day and night?’ This question that Jesus asked leads us to another question:
Are God’s elect (which would be us) crying to Him day and night?
D.L. Moody said, “Next to the wonder of seeing my Savior will be, I think, the wonder that I made so little use of the power of prayer.”
In Christ
Quiana
*Scripture references in ESV unless otherwise noted.