Prayer Pointers: For persistence in prayer
To be able to see and give thanks for God’s work in life
Today’s text: Mark 10:46-52
MASTER LET ME RECEIVE MY SIGHT! The blind Bartimaeus is famous to generations of campers who have sung songs about him crying out to Jesus. His persistence is the key here—he dogs Jesus even after the crowd tells him to hush. He will not be thwarted but is the living example of Jesus’ parable about the widow pestering a judge to give her justice.
Martin Luther encouraged persistence in prayer. God’s command or invitation to us pray and His promise to hear our prayers is the good soil for our confidence to grow. God is faithful and his faithfulness produces confidence in us— maybe even a Bartimaean brazenness. As Luther wrote in his Large Catechism: You can hold such promises up to him and say, “Here I come, dear Father, and pray not of my own accord nor because of my own worthiness, but at your commandment and promise, which cannot fail or deceive me.”
May your day be grace-filled ~ Pr. Dave Brooks