SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON - FEB 8TH

Bible Passages:

Matthew 15:21-28; Luke 18:1-8



What This Lesson Is About:

From a Canaanite woman’s persistent request for Jesus to heal her daughter, and Jesus’ parable teaching His disciples to pray persistently, believers can learn how to pray with persistence.

Spiritual Preparation Through Bible Study -by Eli Landrum, retired from Lifeway Christian Resources. He attends Crievewood Baptist Church in Nashville, TN

The title and subject intrigued me, so I quickly purchased the little book. I read it eagerly because I was intensely interested in gaining insight into a facet of prayer with which I struggled. I was convinced others shared my ongoing effort to understand God’s responses to some of our prayers. As I read the book, I underlined statements with special meaning for me. I prepared a sermon out of the help I received and delivered it to Sunday morning worshipers in an attempt to help them. I still have the book and the sermon.

The small volume deals with God’s puzzling, frustrating silence following earnest petitions we take to Him. Not always, but sometimes, we wait for answers to break the silence. What do we do while we wait? Did not David confidently declare God would answer his prayer for rescue from his oppressors, as we saw last week in our study of Psalm 86? Does God always answer us? Faith answers a resounding, “Yes!” Sometimes, God quickly responds with a yes or a no. Or because God has a sense of humor He may say, as a curriculum writer stated about God’s response to some prayers, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Persistence is an important part of the Christian life in general and of prayer in particular. Praying with power involves praying persistently. Sometimes God delays His answers. He may say, “Wait a while.” How are we to respond when this happens? Become discouraged? Stop praying? No. With the right attitude, we must continue to pray even when the silence stretches the limits of our patience and our faith. God answers our prayers in His own time and in His own way. When we encounter silence to our prayers, in faith we continue to pray into the silence.