Continue in Prayer

Maybe you have been praying for the same person for six years now, and lately you have started to feel a little foolish asking again.

There are two ways to talk about that. One voice says that asking again shows a lack of faith, since real faith would ask once and leave it there. The other voice points to Paul's word. "Continue" is a stubborn word in the Greek, meaning to keep at something and not let go. Luke uses it for the believers waiting in Jerusalem before Pentecost: "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication." Day after day, with nothing yet happening, they kept at it. And "watch in the same" is the Gethsemane word, the one Jesus used with disciples who could not stay awake: "could ye not watch with me one hour?" Paul adds "with thanksgiving," so the asking remembers what God has already done.

Luke records one promise attached to the asking. It is smaller than the one we want, and better: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Whatever the six years bring, that gift is guaranteed to the one doing the asking. So keep asking. Your Father hears you, and He will not hold back His Spirit.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 285 is Graven on His Palms (Isaiah 49:15-16).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two