By
Albert Kumirai
When we are in need of help we pray to God to help us in our time of adversity. We pray faithfully expecting God’s help with our problems. We have no way of knowing when the help will arrive but it always does. God helps us through other people by placing the right people who have the solutions to our problems into our path and by creating the necessary links between us and those who can solve our problems. Often when we pray and the solution does not seem to come quickly enough we tend to despair. Desperation is an indication that we are getting impatient at the time it is taking to get an answer. When a thief is trying to break in, we call the police emergency number, and after a certain length of time we feel that the police are taking too long to respond. We become desperate. A taxi is taking us to the airport, suddenly there is a traffic jam and we are boxed in. The departure time of our flight quickly begins to approach, and we get very desperate. They say desperate times call for desperate measures, so we usually respond in ways that are irrational such as getting out of the taxi and attempting to run on foot the remainder of the distance to the airport, lugging our heavy bags and wearing inappropriate gear for such a marathon. Despair is an act of doubt. Doubt is an expression of faithlessness. When faith goes, doubt sets in accompanied by fear and despair.
We pray faithfully expecting God to help with our problems. Faith is a belief in something we can not see, but a belief so strong and unwavering that it becomes the same as certainty. When a baby gets hungry it prays to the mother for milk. In other words it cries. The mother might have been busy with something she considered urgent, and may have put off feeding the baby until she finishes the task. The baby’s cry is a perfect trigger for the maternal instinct that hears the clear message that baby needs attention. The baby will not stop crying even though the mother may try to lull her or to tell her that it will be just another five minutes before the food is ready. The baby perseveres by crying until the spoon is literally in the mouth and she can taste the porridge. The baby will cry throughout the food preparation period, unaware of the swift pace at which the mother is trying to get the food ready. Unaware that that the only delay now is that mother is trying to cool down the porridge. Unaware that mother is placing a feeding napkin on her tiny chest to get ready to feed her. The baby perseveres unaware of the mother’s progress but fully confident that as long as she continues to cry the food will be put in its mouth. Baby started off having a problem, just as we all might encounter problems. The baby’s problem was a pang of hunger and ours could be any of a myriad of adversities that afflict adult humans.
The baby started crying to a higher power to get its problem solved and we pray to God in faith to get His intervention. When the baby’s mother was taking the time necessary to prepare the food and get the baby ready for feeding, the baby does not stop crying, it perseveres, and will not stop until it is fed, so must we also follow this example and persevere in prayer till our solutions also arrive. God is ever faithful and will always come to our help but we must pray insistently and faithfully because that is His code with us, just as the mother and the baby. The crying triggers the help mechanism in the mother. It is a primal instinct not learnt or practiced but inborn, instinctive, from time immemorial, from God.
A few hours before they ceased Christ during the early period of his passion and eventual death he awoke the three sleeping disciples encouraging them to stay awake as the hour of betrayal was getting closer, their spirits were willing but their bodies were getting weak, so he said to Peter, John and James “Pray.” The act of prayer is a propitiation to God and the voice of our prayer is attuned to God’s audience by the intercession of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our guide and protector and is the voice that reaches to God in the same effective manner that a baby’s voice registers in the maternal instincts of her loving mother. Our God is a loving God and His mercy endures forever, but we can only reach him by constant prayer through faith in Christ Jesus.
But why through faith in the good news of salvation that was brought by Jesus the Christ of God? Because it is revealed in the gospel of John (Chapter 1: verses 1-8) that “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God , and the word was God..” Going further to explain that the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. Further that to those who believed the word, which is Jesus Christ, he gave the right to be called children of God. That right is ours as long as we have faith in the promise of eternal life given us by Christ. When we have faith we do not despair but we persevere by praying without relenting and without doubt.
We become like the baby who cries till her food is brought to her, and never doubts that the mother will give her the food, but uses the shrill crying voice as a maternal trigger. Let your baby teach you to cry to God in prayer. Suffer little children unto me, said Jesus, it is for such as they that the kingdom of heaven is made. If we adults were to have the faith that our children have then it would be easy for us to perform miracles.
So let us learn from the baby the concept of perseverance
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