Be Persistent in Prayer

This month, our guest blogger is Joey Koogler, a content/curriculm designer at Awana. He shares an interesting story of how God answered his prayer and how He can answer yours. Be persistent, don’t give up. God always hears you. 

I was waiting in a drive-thru around 10:30 p.m. after the third night of VBS. When a person in the car ahead of me paid for me, I was grateful. I got my food and pulled away. Five seconds later I thought, “Oh no, I should have paid it forward!”

I turned around and waited in the parking lot for about 15 minutes. No cars. Changing my strategy, I went to three different restaurants looking for a car I could pay it forward to. Nothing. After an hour, I saw a truck going to a drive-thru. I pulled ahead of them, ordered something and then offered to pay for them. “Are you sure?”, the cashier asked. I nodded. “Okay, that’ll be 56 dollars.”

Setting aside the many weird issues I clearly have, you can’t deny my persistence. But I wonder, how often am I that persistent in prayer? Colossians 4:2 says: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” This is an excellent guidepost we can look to for how we pray. Is there something you are desperately praying for? Don’t give up. We should be praying for a lot of different things. But it is also okay to pray a lot for one thing, continually seeking the Lord’s guidance and grace for that thing that is continually on your heart and mind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy. It takes humility. It can feel awkward and repetitive. But it is worth it, because whatever you’re praying for isn’t the only thing that has potential to change.

As you continually seek the Lord in persistent prayer, you will grow ever deeper in your relationship with Him. And whatever the outcome of what we pray for, we can remain thankful that we have a good God who is near and never grows weary of our prayers to Him.

As you seek the Lord in prayer this month, please join us in praying for Awana clubs around the world. We have provided our October prayer guide to help you with that.