December 2002

Always pray and don't give up

'As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up -one on one side, one on the other - so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.' (Exodus 17:11-13)

William Cowper put it like this in a verse from a poem he wrote in 1779:

While Moses stood with arms spread wide,
success was found on Israel’s side;
but when through weariness they failed,
that moment Amalek prevailed.

We are not so fortunate as Moses in that, on this occasion, he was able to see the direct results of his praying. Most, if not all, of the time we have to believe that the link is there (faith) and that our prayers do contribute to advances by God’s kingdom.

The difficulty is often a timing one so that, for example, if prayer for revival does not immediately produce the required result, do we give up? According to Jesus: NO! - ‘Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.’ (Luke 18:1)

Of course, ongoing prayer is a mix of shorter-term (eg the next conference) and longer-term (eg the next revival) objectives and we ought to be encouraged for the longer haul by the day-to-day results we experience along the way.

Like Moses, we are seeking to develop prayer which prevails and this inevitably entails perseverance by us. Assuming God is with us – and I do – and we keep our hands held up (ie keep praying), the breakthrough must follow in due course. Like Moses, we need strength and support – for him Aaron and Hur were the source – and this is one of the reasons we need to meet together to pray on a regular basis.

Like Joshua, we all know the battle is real and can be hard but Joshua had the benefit of Moses’ prayers. For us, another difficulty is that the distinction between their two roles is more blurred and usually we have to combine the two to some extent. Nevertheless, if we resolve to persevere with our praying and the connected battles, what Moses and Joshua have to teach us is that victory will come, the Kingdom of God will advance and our society will be transformed. In our praying we need to press on and to press in.

Jeremy Jennings

This article is an edited version of one first published in Focus, December 2002. Reproduced here with permission.