A Quick Post To Show I Have Not Abandoned Thee

And 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 justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” – Luke 18:1-8

You all know I have talked about this passage before, and I have become more convinced than ever that the unjust judge is the natural, fallen, conscious mind.  Prayer is not about persuading God to see things our way.  It can’t be.  That makes no sense.  Why would the God who is all-wise, all-good, and all-powerful take the advice of a deeply flawed, often deluded and very limited creature?  The argument is that our Father loves us so much that He wants us to plead with Him just so He gets to hear our voice or that He is so kind and loving that He won’t give us what we need until we beg Him.  There are all kinds of ways people try to explain the importance of prayer, and there is some validity to a lot of the theories. 

One of the reasons Pentecostals believe that we speak in tongues is that it is a “prayer language” bypassing the conscious mind.  We are speaking to God directly from our spirit by the Holy Spirit Himself.  When Paul is talking about spiritual gifts in First Corinthians 12-14, he says that he “speaks in tongues” more than anyone and that he prayed “with his spirit” and also “with his mind”.  If he prayed only in the spirit, his spirit was edified but his mind remained “unfruitful”. 

Prayer is meant not to enlighten God but to enlighten us.  As we seek God our spirit becomes more dominant and, rather than being held in thrall by the conscious mind – which is, in turn, often a puppet of the subconscious – the mind begins to conform to the spirit and be illuminated by the light of the Divine.  Persistence, importune prayer renews the mind to the point that we are able to ask in accordance with the will of God. 

The unjust judge “who neither feared God not respected man” eventually acknowledges that which is right and good and lawful.  He decrees and enforces the will of the Lord.