Sometimes the waiting is doing something in us that the answer itself could never do.
There are prayers I have prayed once and felt perfectly comfortable leaving with God. I asked. He heard me. There was nothing more I felt compelled to say.
And then there are other prayers.
They come back tomorrow. And next week. Sometimes next year. The desire doesn't go away. The burden remains. So we bring it to God again. We ask, wait, wrestle, surrender, and eventually find ourselves asking again.
I've wondered what is happening in those seasons.
I don't believe persistent prayer is a way of finally wearing God down. God is not reluctant, and prayer is not leverage. But I do wonder whether sometimes we are so focused on the answer we want God to give that we miss what is happening in us while we wait for it.
Maybe persistent prayer isn't only about the answer.
Maybe sometimes it is preparing us to carry the answer.
Hannah Wanted a Son
I keep coming back to Hannah.
In 1 Samuel 1, Hannah desperately wants a child. She is hurting. She has endured years of barrenness and the cruelty of Peninnah, who deliberately provokes her because of it.
Finally, Hannah takes all of that pain into the presence of God.
She weeps. She prays. Her lips move without sound. Eli ,the High Priest, watches her and actually assumes she is drunk.
Her explanation is simple:
"I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD."
I love her description of prayer.
She has nothing else to say. Only the truth.
But somewhere in Hannah's prayer, something remarkable happens.
She still wants a son. Nothing about her desire has disappeared. But now she says, in essence, If you give me this son, I will give him back to you.
Part of me doesn't care for that. It sounds more like a purchase, all of a sudden.
But after close inspection, I don't think Hannah discovered a formula for getting prayers answered. This isn't bargaining with God: If I promise something sufficiently impressive, perhaps God will give me what I want.
I think something much deeper is happening.
The thing she desperately wants is becoming something she is willing to surrender.
She isn't merely asking, "Will you give this to me?"
She has reached the place where she can also say, "If you give it to me, it belongs to you."
And perhaps that is one of the things persistent prayer can do to us.
Could I Carry What I'm Asking For?
There are things we can desire long before we are prepared to carry them well.
We can pray for influence without realizing what influence will expose in us.
We can pray for financial provision without knowing whether abundance will make us more generous or simply more attached to abundance.
We can pray for opportunity, leadership, ministry, growth, recognition, responsibility, or some great open door.
And God may very well want good things for us.
But receiving something and carrying it well are two different things.
Scripture is full of people who received something from God and then discovered the weight of carrying it. Israel's kings alone should make us cautious here. A calling can be genuine while the person carrying it is still deeply capable of mishandling it.
That makes me wonder whether some of my prayers need another sentence.
Not simply:
"God, would you give me this?"
But:
"God, make me someone who can be trusted with this."
If I'm asking for influence, teach me not to need applause.
If I'm asking for provision, teach me generosity.
If I'm asking for responsibility, deepen my humility.
If I'm asking for something I've wanted for years, don't let finally receiving it turn it into an idol.
And if what I'm asking for is meant to bless someone besides me, don't let me forget why you gave it.
Persistence Is Not Striving
Jesus clearly taught persistence in prayer.
He spoke of asking, seeking, and knocking. He told the story of the persistent widow specifically because people "ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).
But persistence is not the same thing as striving.
There is a kind of prayer that keeps coming back to God because we trust him. And there is another kind that begins to imagine that the intensity of our praying is what finally forces God's hand.
Those are not the same thing, and only one is acceptable.
Hannah's prayer strikes me as powerful precisely because she isn't trying to manufacture anything. She pours out her heart, but in the pouring she also loosens her grip.
That may be one of the strange paradoxes of persistent prayer.
We keep asking, but somehow we learn to hold the answer more loosely.
We become more honest about what we want and more surrendered about what God does with it.
Maybe that's why some prayers seem to take us on such a long journey.
What Is the Prayer Doing in Me?
I don't want to suggest that every delayed answer means God is waiting for us to get our act together. I don't believe that. Some things remain mysteries. Some prayers are answered differently than we hoped. Some losses cannot be explained by saying, "God was preparing you."
We should be especially careful about saying such things about someone else's pain.
But I do think there is a question worth asking about our own persistent prayers:
What is this prayer producing in me?
Am I becoming more trusting?
More surrendered?
Less possessive?
More capable of carrying what I'm asking for without allowing it to carry me?
Hannah eventually received Samuel. But when the answer came, she did what she had said she would do. She brought the child she had wept for back to the house of the Lord.
Imagine that.
The very thing she had wanted so desperately was finally in her arms, and she was able to open those arms again.
Perhaps that is the deeper work of persistent prayer.
Not convincing God to finally release what he has been withholding, but forming in us the kind of open hands that can receive something from God without immediately closing around it.
So I think there are prayers worth continuing to pray.
Ask boldly. Pour out your heart. Tell God exactly what you want.
But perhaps add another prayer alongside it:
"Father, if you give this to me, prepare me to carry it well. And whatever you place in my hands, never let me forget that it still belongs to you."
