Day 278 - March 19 - Luke 18:1-8

I've really been pondering this passage of scripture lately, because it gives me hope for my son. You see, keeping faith alive is often very difficult, and so I am trying to learn and grasp it's true nature - what it is intended to be, in and through you and me, by it's Maker - God. He surely has intent in giving us faith; He clearly states that a measure of faith has been given to each of us; He often bemoans the lack of faith in His followers; and He even asks (rhetorically, I presume) if He will even find it on the Earth when He returns. So, I can be sure that pursuing faith as a means of growing closer to Christ is an activity approved by my Lord, if you will. He wants me to exercise faith, and I think that understanding what it is and isn't will help me exercise it. So, back to Luke 18...

The thing about this passage that struck me the other day came out of the blue. I was reading and pondering on this story of Jesus telling a parable "to the effect that they ought to always pray and not lose hope", and I was impressed by the knowledge that at the very moment that Jesus spoke this tale to his followers - as the words left His lips - He had me in His mind. That in a very real sense, He was speaking to me when He told this story. You see, if I believe (and I do) that God is sovereign and omniscient, then I must accept that He really knows everything. Including the fact that 2000 years after He spoke these words, His Word would be the salve that my hurting heart needs; that this passage spoken through the ages would challenge and encourage a grumpy, weak and fractious old air traffic controller in the midst of the trial of his life. And that brings a sense of certainty to my mind, that it is intended for me to grasp this truth in order to live it.

Now I said earlier that keeping faith alive is difficult. It's difficult to keep alive in the same sense that it's difficult to stay warm if I keep wandering away from the fire - it's usually my own fault that I'm cold, as it were. But it's still often a real struggle to continue to persevere in my belief that Connor will walk again, and formidable forces are arrayed against my success. First, there's the medical verdict. Then there's the vast number of unbelievers who think that not accepting the previously mentioned verdict is a sure way to insanity. There's also my own intellect, which looks at the visible evidence, finds every reason imaginable to explain why whatever I'm looking at is bad, and then despairs; and let's not forget the family of Christians, or at least those who claim that name - often, they are the least faith-full of the bunch. You might be surprised to know that from this position, you can see in the eyes of many "believers" that they don't actually believe God can or will heal Connor. I think that's the most frustrating bit of this to me - that many of the very folks who claim to be saved through faith don't actually display any.

So, what does that have to do with Luke 18? Everything. Because Jesus tells me - ME! - in this passage that I'm not supposed to lose hope as I pray. That I'm not supposed to give up and stop. Now, why do you think He tells us that? Certainly, I believe it's spelled out at the end of the story, when Jesus asks if He will find this kind of faith when He returns - He wants us to be full of faith and to persevere, and so certainly this story is intended to motivate us to exercise that faith. But the exercise of faith without the fruit is not a legitimate purpose - faith must have an outcome in order to be worthwhile. But what little I know about the nature of God tells me that He doesn't exercise His children for no purpose, and He delights to do good things for them. He even promises that in this very passage, saying "And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?"

So this passage, meant as it was to encourage us to pray and not give up, encourages me to pray and not give up.

Imagine that!

BTW, you'll be interested to know that Connor's calf muscles, which have slimmed down tremendously due to disuse since his accident, have over the last few weeks begun taking definition again. He can't move them, he can't feel them, and he can't exercise them - and yet they seem to be toning up.

Hmmm...

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