Keep Calling
Don’t let an absence of answered prayer cause you to stop praying.
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint. — Luke 18:1
Not long ago I was inside our house calling for my wife. We were both home. Same roof, same walls, same address. But somewhere between where I was standing and where she was, there were several walls.
I called her name. Nothing. I called again. Still nothing. She simply could not hear me from where she was. So I stopped calling and went looking. I moved through the house, closing the distance between us, until finally I found her and she could see me.
What struck me afterward was how familiar that feels in prayer.
There are times in the prayer life of every believer where we call out and the silence on the other side feels absolute. We pray the same prayer. We return to the same need. We call the same name. And nothing seems to come back. It is not that we have stopped believing. It is that the walls between where we are and where God seems to be feel thick and immovable. And eventually the temptation arrives, the quiet suggestion that perhaps we should just stop calling.
Jesus told a parable specifically to address that moment.
Luke 18 opens with one of the clearest statements of purpose in any of the gospel parables. Jesus was not being subtle. He told this story “to this end” with a specific goal in mind. That men ought always to pray. And not faint. The word faint here carries the idea of losing heart. Growing weary. Giving up before the answer arrives.
He knew that would be the temptation. So He addressed it directly.
The parable that follows describes a widow who kept coming before an unjust judge with her request. She did not come once and walk away when nothing happened. She came persistently, repeatedly, without giving up. And eventually the judge responded, not out of compassion, but simply because of her persistence. Jesus then draws the contrast, if an unjust judge will respond to persistence, how much more will a God who loves His children respond to those who cry out to Him day and night.
The silence in prayer is not the same as the absence of God. He is in the house. He has not gone anywhere. But there are seasons where He calls us to close the distance, to press deeper into prayer, to persist rather than pull back, to keep calling even when the echo comes back empty.
Unanswered prayer is not an invitation to stop praying. It is an invitation to keep going. To move through the silence toward God, who is already there. To refuse to let the absence of an immediate answer be mistaken for an absence of God.
Whatever you have been praying about, the situation that has not changed, the person who has not come around, the door that has not opened, the healing that has not yet come: do not stop calling. Close the distance. Press in. Persist.
He is in the house. Keep calling until you find Him.
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Another Well Ministries exists to help people slow down, listen deeply, and encounter God in the ordinary places of life. Through devotionals, reflections, and spiritual resources, we seek to create space for faith to be formed with honesty, grace, and hope.
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Well done Jared.