A woman left her diamond brooch in a hotel. When she got home she remembered her brooch and called the hotel. She told the manager what happened and he went to look for it. He found it, put it in the safe, and returned to the phone to tell her the good news, but she had hung up.<\/p>\n
So many of us are like this. We aren\u2019t willing to wait on the Lord.1035<\/p>\n
When Edmund Gravely died at the controls of his small plane while on the way to Statesboro, Georgia, from the Rocky Mount-Wilson Airport in North Carolina, his wife, Janice, kept the plane aloft for two hours. As the plane crossed the South Carolina\/North Carolina border, she radioed for help: \u201cHelp, help, won\u2019t someone help me? My pilot is unconscious.\u201d Authorities who picked up her distress signal were not able to reach her by radio during the flight because she kept changing channels. Eventually Mrs. Gravely made a rough landing and had to crawl for forty-five minutes to a farmhouse for help.<\/p>\n
How often God\u2019s people cry out to him for help but switch channels before his message comes through! They turn to other sources for help, looking for human guidance. When you cry out to God for his intervention, don\u2019t switch channels!1036<\/p>\n
A father related that during their family time each person was going to pray for one person. His son prayed to ask God to help his friend Eddie be better at school because he was so bad. When they got together the next week, the father asked his son if he was going to pray for Eddie again. \u201cNo,\u201d the son replied, \u201cI prayed for Eddie last week and he is still bad.\u201d1037<\/p>\n
A young man, who was obviously worried, stepped into an elevator to go to the second floor of a hospital where his father was in the intensive-care unit. Although the button labeled \u201c2\u201d was already lighted, he pushed it again and again. A doctor standing behind him said, \u201cPushing the button someone has already pushed is like reminding God you\u2019re still there when he hasn\u2019t answered your prayer immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the man thought of his father in intensive care, it was comforting to know that God does encourage believers to continue to pray the same prayers until he answers (Matt. 7:7\u20138).1038<\/p>\n
In Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/i> by John Bunyan, Christiana (the hero\u2019s wife), Mercy (a young pilgrim), and the children are graphically pictured knocking on the Wicker Gate. They knock and knock, but no one answers. Meanwhile, a ferocious dog comes and begins to bark\u2014making the women and children very afraid. They simply do not know what to do. If they continue to knock, they must fear the dog. If they turn away, they fear the gatekeeper will be offended. They determine to knock again, ever so fervently. Finally they hear the voice of the gatekeeper asking, \u201cWho is there?\u201d And the dog ceases barking.<\/p>\n
What dogs are barking in your<\/i> life that the Lord can silence?1039<\/p>\n
\u201cFor your desire is your prayer; and your desire is without ceasing; your prayer will also be without ceasing\u201d (St. Augustine).1040<\/p>\n
The story is told of a long-ago couple who said farewell to their home church as they were about to leave for an African mission field known as \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Grave.\u201d The husband said, \u201cMy wife and I have a strange dread in going. We feel much as if we were going down into a pit. We are willing to take the risk and go if you, our home church, will promise to hold the ropes.\u201d One and all promised to do so.<\/p>\n
Less than two years had passed when the wife and the little one God had given the couple succumbed to the dreaded fever. Soon the husband realized his days were also numbered. Not waiting to send word of his coming, he started back home at once and arrived at the time of the Wednesday prayer meeting. He slipped in unnoticed, taking a back seat. At the close of the meeting, he went forward. An awe came over the people, for death was written on his face.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cI am your missionary. My wife and child are buried in Africa and I have come home to die. This evening I listened anxiously as you prayed for some mention of your missionary to see if you were keeping your promise, but in vain! You prayed for everything connected with yourselves and your home circle, but you forgot your missionary. I see now why I am a failure as a missionary. It is because you have failed to hold the ropes.\u201d1041<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A woman left her diamond brooch in a hotel. When she got home she remembered her brooch and called the hotel. She told the manager what happened and he went to look for it. He found it, put it in the safe, and returned to the phone to tell her the good news, but she … Continue reading “PRAYER, PERSEVERANCE IN”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}