Persistent Prayer

Posted: 03/23/2022 | Inspiration

By Jason Shanks – President, OSV Institute for Catholic Innovation

In Nov. 2020 I was taken to the hospital—I had Covid, and it was severe. I was not breathing well and after taking chest x-rays, they had to sedate and intubate. I was to enter a forty day plus desert. For six weeks I was sedated. It took 45 days for me to test negative to Covid, and during that time, I also got pneumonia, and my blood became septic. Things would go from worse to dire when my kidneys stopped working and I was put on 24 hour dialysis’. I had fought the tubes in my sleep state so they took the step to purposely paralyze my body.

In Scripture there is an account of a paralytic man (Luke 5:17-26) who is lowered through the roof and laid at the feet of Jesus. Jesus says, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” But right before this, Luke writes, “And when he saw their faith…” It was “their faith” and not the man’s that saved him. When you read this account, you will note that they tried earlier to find a way in the room that was NOT through the roof. You can imagine, that their first option might not have been the roof. And the text does not indicate, how long they tried for, or other occasions they might have tried to get the man to Jesus. They were now there, there was no turning back, they were not to be denied. I imagine these friends looking for a way in, talking to the crowd asking for them to move out of the way, looking to see if he could fit thru the window, but in the end—roof it was. And getting him to the roof, and lowering him down could not have been easy either, it took hard work, grit, and perseverance.

I was woken up after six weeks of sedation. I couldn’t walk, talk, move my arms, and was on a breathing machine, being feed thru my stomach, dialysis port in, beeping sounds all around. I was a cyborg that had entered the matrix! But I was alive! Many would come to see it as a miracle including the doctors and nurses. But, how? My wife had prayed and prayed, my friends started rosaries on Sunday’s, and at the worst point, a novena to St. Jude was said. And then, I gradually started getting better and better! They never gave up, they were persistent and intentional in their requests of our Lord, and they saved my life. Amazingly, to this day, in my dream state, different individuals would enter my dreams, and I believe it is because in the real world they were praying for me. Somehow, they entered my dream state and gave me encouragement, because the Lord connected us through prayer. Amazing to think about!

Those men who lowered the paralytic through the roof, took a great risk, and I am not just talking about any damage to the roof. They took a risk because maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe Jesus wouldn’t heal him, maybe their hopes would be dashed; or they would be disappointed. They were persistent, but at a cost, a cost of having to deal with a potentiality that their request would be denied—the answer could be, no. They demonstrated their faith through persistence and the risk of failure.

The lessons of persistent prayer are rampant in scripture especially in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke 11:5-13, Jesus teaches that persistence pays off. When a friend is awoken in the middle of the night, he will get up and help, not because he is a friend, but because of the stick-to-it-ive-ness of the friend in need. Jesus closes with the familiar words, “For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

Our “asking” is not annoying to God, or as we like to say, “Don’t just give God a laundry list.” Asking our expression of our weakness and shows our need and dependency on The Lord. Simply, it loves us out of a self sufficiency and delusions that we are in control. So, in the very nature of “ask”, we are orienting ourselves rightly towards the Lord in humility.

Later, we see more illustrations of persistent prayer in the story of the widow and the judge in Luke 18:1-8. The widow came coming and coming asking for vindication. The judge relented because, “this widow bothers me” and if I don’t vindicate her, “she will wear me out”. Jesus says if this unrighteous judge would grant this request how much more would the Heavenly Father who loves them grant their requests. It is important to note, that perhaps the widow felt she had nothing to lose. But at the beginning of this parable, Luke says this was told, “to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Again, the widow had to overcome fear and risk and receiving an answer she did not want. So, why tell this as a parable to not “lose heart”? Would the lesson be different if the judge refused her request. Seems to me that besides the outcome, the action of the widow transformed her regardless of outcome.

One more example in Luke will illustrate again the principle of persistence in prayer— Jesus heals a blind beggar (Luke 18:35-43). This beggar heard Jesus was walking by, and cried out for mercy. He was rebuked and told to be silent, but he was not to be deterred and cried out “all the more”. Jesus would give this man sight saying “your faith has made you well.” The blind beggar’s persistence paid off!

Intercession of friends, persistence, risk taking—all in play here in our prayer life. For me, my desert became life-giving spiritually. When I awoke, I had to spend many days dependent on others and dependent on my Lord. I was taken to a sacred place of silence where all I could do was pray. A space I would later treasure. But on our normal day to day, with all the busyness, how can we be persistent in prayer? And not just persistent in asking, but in listening. Like any relationship, there is a risk of putting ourselves out there, we have to be intentional in our time and little interactions, and we have keep trying, to take the risk. The relationship transform us and conforms is to God’s divine will.

Recently, after sharing about my Covid story—the prayers said, and the miracle of what happened—a man asked to speak to me after. This encounter would have a profound impact on me. He had a friend who was terminally ill and had only weeks to live. He wondered why God would save me and not his friend, something I have honestly have no answer to and have wondered myself. And, he wanted to lower his friend through the roof and lay him before Jesus, but was afraid if he did, God might not answer the prayer, and it would rock his faith. He nodded as I spoke of God’s will, uniting ourselves to the will of the Father, and praying most importantly for God’s will to be done. He understood as I spoke of suffering and what to do when God does not presumably answer our prayer the way we want. I spoke of the divine perspective of God and he seeing things we don’t.

But in the end, I remembered the lesson of the people lowering me through a roof, the power of intercession, and after asking if he would like me to pray with him and he agreeing, we prayed for his friend. I hope I was able to articulate the prayers my new friend was unable to express, but his tears were saying it all.

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