WHY GO ON PRAYING?

WHY GO ON PRAYING?
[Selected]

"And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: and he looked toward Sodom ... and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Genesis 19:27-28.

ABRAHAM'S dawn visit to the hallowed spot overlooking the plains of Jordan must have brought a deep sense of disappointment to his heart. On the previous day he had met the Lord face to face on that very spot. He had been taken into the divine confidence and, with a fine mixture of bold faith and deep humility, he had pleaded for Sodom to be spared. He had been obliged to return to his tent at Mamre without any conclusive promise from the Lord, and may well have wondered if there had been any use in praying about such a matter. He was, however, a [97/98] man of great faith, so he made an early morning visit to the place of prayer to discover what answer had been given to his earnest pleadings.

All those who have suffered the pain of having no apparent answer to their prayers will realise with what disappointment and dismay he must have looked out across the plain only to be confronted with a dreadful spectacle of fiery destruction. We are not told how he felt -- some griefs are too tragic for words -- nor are we told how long he gazed in despair at the fury of that vast furnace. Did he go back to his tent feeling baffled and rejected? Did the tempter whisper words of unbelief, as he often does to us? Was this perhaps the beginning of that age-old question: 'Why go on praying'? We do not know.




One thing we do know, though, and later on this same information must have reached Abraham and silenced all his doubts. It was that Lot was safe. He had not been involved in that fatal holocaust. He himself had not contributed anything to his deliverance. In fact he had done his utmost to impede the heavenly rescuers. Nevertheless he had been delivered and spared. And the inspired chronicler assures us that this was simply and solely the result of Abraham's apparently unanswered prayers. "God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow ..." (verse 29). The miracle of mercy was all attributable to Abraham's influence with God.

Why go on praying? Because the Bible abounds with promises and examples of the fact that God is the rewarder of them that seek Him diligently. Let us never give up, even though there may be no evidence of any response from heaven and even if -- like Abraham -- we look out on to a prospect of seemingly unrelieved gloom. It may have taken time before the patriarch had any idea that his prayer had been answered. In our case we may never know here on earth. But one of the joys of our bliss in the glory will be to discover how after all 'God remembered'. He always does. - Selected
----------------