1 Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up. (Luke 18:1 CSB)

Persistence in prayer is a must in a life of faith.

God answers prayers in three ways, “Yes, Maybe but you must wait, or I have something different in mind.”

Personally, I think the latter is His most frequent answer. And I believe this not because God does not want to answer His children, but because we rarely have enough of the picture to see God’s best outcome. Thus, He begins working toward a different, better end.

Secondly, when we are asked to wait we become impatient forgetting the greatest aspect of prayer. For it is in the waiting that the true spiritual work is done within us. God’s timing tends to have multiple planned outcomes. We often miss the subtle but complicated way that God works within our lives through asking us to wait.

Prayer often becomes this thing we toss at God and expect something good to be tossed back. God rarely works that way. He is the God of timing, persistence and proving. He wants our prayers to work on us as much or more than they work on what we are praying about. It is through prayer that God works on you through working on our needs and petitions.

In the end, God wants mostly change in us through prayer.