Radishes and Oak Trees - Persevering in Prayer

While on an evening walk recently I passed a gorgeous patch of woodland full of tall, mature trees:

Since I started making a serious effort to pray for some of the big problems facing God's creation like climate change, species extinction and the pollution of air, land and sea, I have had to face the fact that a lot of these things I'm praying for are very long term issues. Some of these prayers I am praying I will probably be praying for decades. How can I manage to do that without giving up?

Persevering in Prayer 

In Luke chapter 18 it says:

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And 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.

There is a lot to say about how we can persevere in our prayers, but the foundation stone is believing that God is good and he wants to do the good things we are asking for. That's what Jesus is saying in Luke chapter 18: we aren't begging an unjust judge, we are praying to our good and loving Father.

So why doesn't God just answer all our prayers straight away? Let's look at another part of the Bible, where Paul is describing one of his fellow believers, Epaphras, to the church in Colosse (Colossians chapter 4 verses 12-13):

"Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis."

Prayer is like wrestling; we are working hard, struggling against an opponent: the spiritual forces of evil, of Babylon (the anti-God systems that sinful humans create) and of humans' own individual sinfulness. In our prayers we are not begging God; we are fighting against evil with God on our side. I found a longer and very helpful explanation of this on John Piper's website.

Radishes and Oak Trees

So what difference does this make to us when we are actually on our knees praying? Some thoughts:

1. Try exploring prayer items with God; talk to him about them, ask him to give you insight into them. If you've got a list of things to pray for, maybe take a different one each day to go into in a bit more depth.
2. Maybe do a bit more commanding and declaring. Remember it isn't God that's the obstacle, it's the forces of evil. So command them to get out of the way in Jesus' name!

In the end, some of our prayers are going to be radishes and some will be oak trees: there are some things that we can start praying about (plant 🌱), and in a few weeks they are answered (ready to eat) and we can taste the fruits of our prayer: a fresh radish in our salad 😊🥗.

But there are some prayer needs that are going to require prayers of the size, lifetime and strength of oak trees to tackle them. The problems are deep rooted in spiritual evil and human sinfulness. Are we prepared to wrestle, to sacrifice, to keep pushing at these problems and grow an oak tree of prayer to deal with them? With God's help, we can.