Be Persistent

Text: “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).

Have you ever felt like giving up because you thought something was too difficult for you to learn or do? Maybe the therapy you were going through caused you pain and you felt you just could not go on because results were not evident. Have you ever thought about giving up praying to Almighty God because what you were praying for did not happen?

Imagine how your life would have been if you had never learned to walk. For a child, learning to walk is a real task. They have no sense of balance.

They have to work to develop their muscles so they can pull themselves up to a table or chair and remain standing. The child learns to reposition their legs to move them from one place to another. They wobble with each step and they fall many times before learning this new skill.

Children do not give up trying to accomplish a task. They are not afraid to try repeatedly. As they gain strength and balance, their self-confidence becomes greater and greater. Soon they have mastered the skill of walking, playing an electronic game, learning to play a musical instrument and a host of other skills.

Children are not afraid to try new skills, whereas adults seem to find a comfort zone and want to stay there. Many adults are not interested in doing or learning something new because they are comfortable living in their present mode.

When it comes to praying, children will pray for the impossible, but adults only pray for what they can see or touch. To a child, nothing is impossible, but to an adult some things are impossible simply because they do not want to exert the effort. Some adults have faith, but only in the things that are visible and not the things that are invisible.

I heard a story about a little girl who wanted a kitten, but her mother was not a cat lover. The little girl kept asking her mother about acquiring a kitten. This went on repeatedly day after day.

The mother got so tired of hearing her persistent daughter that she told her daughter if God wanted her to have a kitten, He would provide one. Once the mother said this, the little girl was sure God would not let her down.

She was so happy that her mother agreed, she went out into the back yard got down on her knees, bowed her head and began to hold God to His word which said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find….” (Matthew 7:7). There was absolutely surety God was good and He would provide a kitten for her.

Do you know what happened? As the little girl was praying, a kitten fell from the sky and landed right in front of her. She opened her eyes, scooped up the kitten in her arms and thanked God for being true to His word.

That is a true story. It really did happen. God had provided the kitten the little girl wanted. Here is a little bit of the background to the story.

A pastor had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard. That wasn’t bad, but once the kitten climbed the tree, it was afraid to come back down. He did all he could to convince the kitten back down.

The pastor was a rather big man and the tree was not strong enough for him to climb, but he really wanted to get the kitten down. He got a real bright idea. He backed his car near the tree and tied one end of a rope around the tree and the other end around the bumper of his car. His idea was to pull the car forward enough to bend the tree toward the ground and then he could reach up and get the kitten.

As he moved the car forward, the rope broke and sent the kitten flying through the air like a cannon shot. When this happened, the pastor felt very bad. He didn’t know what to do except to go through the neighborhood looking for the kitten.

As he went to each house in the neighborhood, the response was the same. Not a single neighbor saw the kitten. Of course, the pastor was very disturbed because of what had happened.

About a week later, the pastor was doing his grocery shopping when he noticed one of his neighbors doing her shopping. As he approached her, he noticed that in her grocery cart were cans of cat food. He knew, without a doubt, this neighbor did not have a cat because she did not like cats.