I sat back and looked out the window, a barrage of questions tumbling around in my brain.
Why hadn’t I thought about this before? What did it mean? Why is this question put on the end of this story? What’s Jesus wanting us to understand by adding this to the end of his parable?
I’d just read the parable from Luke which has been titled, The Persistent Widow. You’d be as familiar with this story as I am but it’s the question at the end that I was puzzling over.
When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth?
Now I’m sure there will be many out there, either Greek scholars or people equipped with Bible knowledge, whom I could ask but my mind had moved passed plain curiosity and I now had other questions going through my head.
What do I do when prayers aren’t answered? Why do the Scriptures tell us to ask, and keep on asking; to call on God; to pray without ceasing; to seek and to knock?
When Jesus comes or when he calls me home will he find me still on my knees asking; still crying out to him that, although, I don’t understand, and see no answers to my prayers, I’m still asking and believing and declaring that he is God; he is the One that I depend on?
Or will he find me disillusioned, my prayer journal abandoned, forgotten, because, well…I prayed for years, God, and nothing happened. I see other people pray and have wonderful things happen but that just doesn’t happen to me.
Maybe, down the track, I’ll get someone to help me understand just what Jesus meant when he asked that question but, in the meantime, that question is now burned into my soul. When Jesus comes or calls me home will he find me on my knees, still asking, seeking, knocking? Regardless of the circumstances, will he find me faithful?
Oh, Father God, may I be faithful to the end!