Priests in the Marketplace (Part 2)
By Bob Fraser
www.josephcompany.org
Last month we started to look at our identity as priests in the marketplace, and overcoming the prayerlessness and self-reliance that holds us back. Another enemy of prayer is lack of internal motivation. Our lives can get stuffed with distraction and dissipation, shouted down by a cacophony of internal and external noise, thoughts, worries and cares.
Seeking God, then, takes a simple commitment to prioritize. We must carve away time from career, business, and the many things that tug at us. We must apply our skills of organization and prioritizing to our prayer life, lest we become spiritually sluggish. I remember reading in the Bible,
15The lazy man buries his hand in the bowl; It wearies him to bring it back to his mouth. Prov. 26:15 (NKJV)
I thought, "That's my prayer life!" I could start but couldn't seem to finish. I was inspired to overcome sluggishness by meditating on the examples of several people in the Bible. I call them my heroes of importunity. Importunity is being "troublesomely urgent or persistent in requesting; pressingly entreating." Importunity was one of Jesus' primary teachings on prayer.
The first hero of importunity appears in Jesus' teaching on prayer in the parable of the persistent friend. Jesus said because of the friend's importunity, he will get an answer (Luke 11:8).
Another hero is Jacob, who wrestled with God and prevailed because he knew he could get an answer.
The Syrophoenician woman (Matt 15:21-28) is another hero of importunity. She came to Jesus to ask for healing for her daughter. Jesus refused, intending to draw out her faith. She replied, "Even the dogs get the crumbs that fall off the table." Amazing! She was "troublesomely urgent and persistent in requesting, pressingly entreating." Jesus responded, "So great a faith I have not seen in all of
Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-43) is a terrific hero of importunity. When he heard Jesus was coming by, he became the most annoying person in the area, shouting, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" He refused to let his window of opportunity pass.
The widow in Jesus' parable in Luke 18 is a hero of importunity. Even when the unrighteous judge refused her, she continued to entreat him.
Importunity is one of the single most important understandings of prayer as taught by Jesus. Many times in my life, I have been hit with difficulty, where I needed an answer from God. In these times, my wife and I agreed to pray together three times a day: before I left for work. At lunch when I came home, and before bed. We prayed with persistence, because we were convinced we could get an answer.
3 Pillars of Prayer
There are three pillars of understanding that help us to build a vibrant prayer life:
1) God knows and cares - we must never think otherwise. Over and over and over, Jesus made this point when teaching on prayer (Matt 6:25-34, Matt 7:7-11, Luke 11:11-13, Luke 18:1-8). He told us to ask, and continue asking; to seek and continue seeking; to knock and continue knocking, because He cares for us, and He wants to answer us (Matt 7:7-11, Luke 11:11-13).
2) Nobody is worthy enough to ask. None of my heroes of importunity were worthy. None had a "right" to receive. None of them came on legal grounds. They simply asked as children, knowing God would smile on them.
3) Importunity and persistence work. Why did Jesus speak His parables on prayer? The scriptures tell us: "He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart." (Luke 18:1) We can get an answer if we don't lose heart and give up.
Taking our place on the wall
Marketplace Christians are called to be priests in the workplace, to cry out to God and prevail in matters close to His heart. I often hear Marketplace Christians pray for the fire to return to their hearts. One day as I was praying this very prayer, God brought me to Proverbs 26:20: "for lack of wood the fire goes out." How obvious! How simple! It is amazing God would put such an obvious thought in the Bible. The wood for the fire of our hearts is prayer. Most of us don't need fire we have plenty of embers but we do need wood. We need to pray. We need to schedule a regular prayer meeting with God and show up for it. We need to ask with importunity, growing stronger in the knowledge that when we ask, we'll receive. As we grow strong in prayer, we'll become priests in our workplaces.