The importance of ‘persisterence’

Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. – Daniel 10v12-13

Please pardon my rather unusual word in the title today. We have been watching a BBS period drama called ‘From Lark Rise to Candleford.’ One to the characters, a sort of naïve young girl has a hard time with big words and she constantly malaprops persistence with ‘persisterence.’ We were watching an episode recently and I thought ‘I’d like to use Minnie’s word’ so here was the perfect opportunity.

Anyway, back to the thought for today.

This is an interesting situation that I don’t really understand. It is a glimpse into the spiritual warfare that is constantly going on. When Daniel started praying God sent an angel to bring him the answer to his prayers. Twenty-one days passed and apparently nothing happened. Finally the man showed up and told him that he had been making his way, but had been detained by ‘the prince of the kingdom of Persia.’ That went on until Michael the archangel came to help him.

I don’t really get how that works. I do know that there is a spiritual warfare going on all the time. I do know that angels and demons are real and active. Beyond that we don’t read a whole lot.

But I do know what the messenger told Daniel. ‘When you humbled yourself before God your words were heard and I have come because of words.’

In this spiritual battle prayer is a weapon that we too often fail to use. Persistence, or persisterence if you will, in prayer in something Jesus talked about when he told the story of the poor woman begging scraps at the master’s table. This spiritual battle raged for three weeks. We have no idea what is going on around us when we pray, but we do know that somehow prayer works and God acts.

Instead of trying to figure all that out, maybe I will just exercise so persisterence when it comes to prayer.