The readings for today talk about persistence. Persistence in prayer, and persistence in our faith. Persistence is the quality to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult. Anything that is good and anything that is worthwhile takes persistence to achieve. This is everything in life. Being a good person, a good father, and a good spouse takes persistence. Achieving your goals and your dreams takes persistence. Working through your trials, challenges, and struggles in life takes persistence. God doesn’t want us to suffer. Many times what we see as suffering or a struggle in life is just a small step towards something great that God has planned for us that we cannot even conceive. Many times, we pray for certain things we need, or things we want to make our lives better, yet often we feel God does not listen. Many times we feel these prayers go unanswered. This is when we need to be persistent, just as Christ says in todays Gospel where He tells the disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
And the thing is, most times, the things we feel we need, or the things we want, are not exactly what is right for us and what God has planned. God knows this and He knows what we need, and is creating a path for us that is even greater than we can imagine, but He expects our persistence in prayer. If we have problems, or are fighting through a struggle and don’t necessarily know the way out, all we have to do is pray persistently to Christ, unceasingly seek His guidance and He will present a solution. It may not be the solution that we expect, but it is always the solution that we need, and the one that best fits us and fulfills Gods plan. If we stay persistent in our prayer, and make an attempt to accept Christ’s peace and grace to get us through those times of struggle until His solution takes shape, we cannot fail. This is the moral of the parable today when the judge, regardless of his personal views and opinions, gives the widow a just decision based upon her persistence. In other words, the squeaky wheel gets the grease!
Keeping a persistent prayer life is a constant struggle. Just read about any saint. Many times throughout their lives and throughout ours, we go through peaks where we feel we are in sync with God and that He hears us and we hear Him, and that we cannot do wrong, and everything is perfect. This is a dangerous time, because what goes up must come down. After every peak comes a valley, and there are times where we may feel that God just is not listening and that we are alone, and that He is not with us. This is the dark period, but through the darkness, we need to be persistent. We need to be persistent in prayer, persistent in our faith, and persistent in our Christian life so that our faith in God, hope in our salvation and love of Christ through our family and friends can bring us through those valleys. And we need to be persistent in faith, hope and love during those peaks in our lives when everything is going well so that we remain humble and thankful. Persistence in prayer, our faith, and discipleship helps keep our lives a little more level where our peaks are not too high, and our valleys are not too low. It helps ensure we don’t fall too far down when things go bad and don’t have to struggle as much when climbing back up. Persistence through everything means everything. This is what John spoke of today when he said:
Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters, especially for strangers; they have testified to your love before the Church. Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey. For they have set out for the sake of the Name and are accepting nothing from the pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such persons, so that we may be co-workers in the truth.
The first line, “Be faithful in all you do,” says it all. No matter what we go through, we must be faithful and prayerful in all that we do. No matter the hurdles we must continue to serve Christ and spread His teachings, and His love. No matter our problems we must faithfully know God and understand that it is all part of His plan, a plan that is greater than anything that we can think of and just let it take shape. And when we so desire something for ourselves, or more importantly for others, we need to consistently ask God to help us. We can’t just pray about it a couple times and expect Him to answer our prayer. If we truly desire something, and are truly sincere about our requests, God will listen. He just asks for sincerity and persistent love in return.
