Waiting is the Crucible

As a teenager I attended a prayer seminar with hundreds of people gathered in a “big top” tent to share their testimonies to the power of prayer. One man stood up and tearfully recounted how his son had an aneurysm burst in his brain. As his son lay unconscious in hospital, a prayer network mobilized 3,000 praying Christians across the city of Melbourne, Australia. His son recovered completely, … a miraculous outcome given what his son had experienced. I got to my feet and asked,
“What would have happened if only 2,999 Christians had been praying?”

Totally insensitive, I know, but as a teenager I wanted to know what this experience said about God. Is there a tipping point with God, where 2,500 requests aren’t enough, but 3,000 independent requests for intervention are enough? I imagined God up in heaven with an ‘angst-ometer’ saying, “OK, now I’d better do something.”

Later in the seminar a woman recounted how she had prayed daily for her son who had rejected God. After 34 years of daily prayer, some 12,400 prayers by my reckoning, her son reached out to reestablish relationship with God. One of life’s more trying crucibles must be the daily knowledge that the most important thing in a parent’s life is nothing to their beloved child – that their child is choosing eternal separation from them and God. But this woman had prevailed in this crucible through the power of 34 years of prayer. Again, this insensitive teenager got to his feet and asked,
“What would have happened if you had missed a day?”

While patience like this woman displayed is indeed a virtue in the crucible of life experiences, it does raise questions regarding God’s character. Luke 18:1-8 recounts Jesus’ parable of the persistent widow seeking justice from a heartless, Godless judge. For some time he ignores her pleas, and then eventually declares,
“… because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t wear me out with my coming!”

This week it is worth considering not only whether patience is desirable in the crucible, but why? Is it because God is as heartless as the Judge in Luke 18? Or does our continued plea for His deliverance bring glory to Him in the heavenly courts? Read on in Luke 18.
“… will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”
© Alister L Hunt PhD