day three: praying persistently.

At six months old, this child has already taught me so much.  One of the biggest ones is persistence.  When homegirl wants something she either persists long enough to get it herself (read: fall over on her face throwing herself at a toy) or if that fails she has an amazing set of lungs that she will use to motivate you to give her what she wants.  Per.sis.tent.

I love Jay & Alex Whitaker and praying with them since Jay was diagnosed with leukemia has seriously changed my life.  I prayed along with them (and a bazillion other people) for Jay to be cured through his first bone marrow transplant and then was brokenhearted with them when it came back.  So I prayed with them through his second bone marrow transplant and WEPT with them when they found out it had come back. Again.

When she wrote about it coming back, Alex shared this quote on their blog:

Give me unwavering faith that supplications are never in vain, 
that if I seem not to obtain my petitions 
I shall have larger, richer answers,
 surpassing all that I ask or think. 
Unsought, thou hast given me the greatest gift, 
the person of thy Son,and in him thou wilt give me all I need.

Praying with Jay & Alex is teaching me that praying BIG is praying PERSISTENTLY.  I will not quit praying for these dear friends and that Jesus would heal "Jay's sick body" (as Karis says :)) because I know that the Mighty God that I pray to is also the Great Physician and that He defeated death on the cross.  Death is not greater than the God I pray to and so every day I will show up again and again at the throne of grace and set the Whitakers at Jesus' feet and ask Him over and over again to heal Jay.

There's a lot of things that Jesus said that are crazy but one of my favorites is in a parable he told about prayer in Luke 11:5-8 about HOW to pray.  The Cliff's Notes version is Jesus saying for you to imagine going to a friend's house at midnight and asking for three loaves of bread.  (Three loaves, not one. Go big or go home, right?)  Then your friend says, in effect, "You crazy. Leave me alone." But then Jesus says this: "Though he won't do it for friendship's sake -- if you keep knocking long enough he will get up and give you what you want because of your SHAMELESS PERSISTENCE." (Luke 11:8)

Tonight I'm not going to be lame and only ask for one loaf of bread and politely apologize whenever the door stays shut. Tonight I'm going to be shamelessly persistent--obnoxious even--and keep knocking knowing that the God whose door I'm knocking on isn't a lame friend who is annoyed that I'm asking for bread but is loving and gracious and is delighted in my persistence.

Praying persistently is praying BIG and I want to be a part of that.