Nagging Prayer that Drives God Crazy
[1] And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
[2] He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.[3] And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’[4] For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man,[5] yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’”[6] And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.[7] And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?[8] I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:1-8 ESV
Jesus is cheering on the disciples to pray in this parable. The radical thing is, He compares God to a judge that is really kind of a punk. The judge neither feared God or respected man. Remember when Jesus said the two greatest commandments were to “Love God with all of your heart and soul and love you neighbor as yourself,” everyone agreed that was wise. Here is a judge that does neither of those, and he’s being compared to God!
Now a widow in those days would be in a bad spot. She could neither have a voice in civic matters or own property. If someone did something wrong against her, she wouldn’t be able to bring charges and speak up against them. This widow is on the same scale as “the poor in spirit” that Jesus mentioned in the beatitudes or the tax collector that can’t even come into the temple in next section of Luke 18. All this widow has on her side is persistence. Her persistence leads the evil judge to give in to her cause so that she won’t “beat me down!”
If the evil judge gives in to the nag, how much more so will our loving God give in to those He loves? There is a theme in pop religious culture that we pray because it changes us. That is all fine but that is not the point of praying and especially not the kind of praying that Jesus describes.
This is also not the kind of praying that demands something from God as if He should obey us. The widow, by definition, is going to be humble (Jesus will elaborate on the humble state in the next parable). In our prayer-nagging we should always remember that God is God and we are people. The thing we want might not be the thing God is planning on giving us.
If Jesus told us to pray constantly for our needs and nag God like He’s a curmudgeon, we don’t have to feel bad about asking God over and over again for relief. If you’re exhausted with asking, or exhausted with waiting, know that God the Father said that it’s ok to exhaust Him with asking. He won’t turn you away – even if you drive Him crazy.