[Darris McNeely] When I was a kid, I would pester my parents whenever I got it in my head that I just had to have something or go somewhere. And I wanted it so bad, and I wouldn't take no for an answer. And I kept just pleading and begging, and I was pretty persistent. Now, yeah, I was a bit selfish. Well, probably a lot selfish when it comes right down to it. But sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. How about you? Did you ever do that? Do your kids do that with you now? How do you react?

Persistence is an interesting quality. God does want us, I think, to be persistent when it comes to the requests that we make to Him, when it comes to what we bring to His throne of grace, to His attention, asking for ourselves or asking for someone else. I do think God wants us to be persistent, urgent, focused on what we are doing, and not give up. There is a parable that speaks to that. It's called the "Parable of the Persistent Widow." And let me read it to you.

He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, "In a certain city, there was a judge, who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' For a while he refused. But afterward, he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.' And the Lord said, 'Hear what the unrighteous judge says, and will not God give justice to His elect who cry to him day and night? Will He delay long over them? I tell you, He will give them justice speedily.' Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the Earth?"

And so He uses this parable, I think, to show that we've got to put passion into our requests. We do need to be persistent. There needs to be an urgency. We do need to cry out to God. And we need to do that continually. That in that persistency helps to develop something about faith within us. Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the Earth?"

If we continue with persistent prayer and urgency there, it will help us to develop faith in God. No matter what the answer might be, no matter how or when, in what way, God chooses to be persistent day and night with someone who's suffering, needing to be healed, with an affliction, with a spiritual need, maybe something even in your own life, that is difficult to overcome, difficult to handle. But we don't give up and we cry out to God, and we're urgent and we're persistence with it.

We develop faith because in the process, we're developing a relationship with God. And we then will be able to accept the answer that He gives and understand that what we have done is right, and we will have faith and we will recognize God, and He will find it in us when He does return.

That's "BT Daily." Join us next time.