April.25.01: Light For The Day - "Don’t Give Up" -- Luke 18:1 (RSV) "And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart." ------------- Jesus taught us we should always pray and not lose heart (Luk 18:1). I have a friend, Yvonne Thigpen, who recently told me  how her father became a Christian. While Yvonne was  growing up, she knew there were periods of time when  her dad was under profound conviction, but he  adamantly resisted the gospel. Once, for example,  when evangelist Bobby Jackson was conducting a  revival in a nearby church, he visited Yvonne’s dad  and witnessed to him. Her father reacted with hostility,  but for two weeks afterward he was sullen and disturbed. “Yet he never yielded his life to Christ,” said Yvonne,  “and that just broke our hearts. But we continued praying.” Some years later, Yvonne’s mother, a severe diabetic,  became ill and lapsed into a coma. She was so bad  off that, to everyone’s surprise, her husband actually  said a prayer, something like this: “Lord, I just can’t  bear to lose Ruth right now. If you’ll spare her life,  I’ll give you my heart.” Ruth did recover. And  Yvonne recalls, “On the first Sunday my mother  was able to return to church, my dad went with  her and stepped out and gave his heart and life to  the Lord Jesus Christ.” How long had Yvonne and others been praying for him?  Twenty-five years.  “As soon as I accepted the Lord as a child,” she said,  “I started praying for him. And we prayed twenty-five years.” The famous 19th century philanthropist and evangelist,  George Muller, was a prayer warrior who began praying  earnestly for a group of five personal friends who were  antagonistic toward the gospel.  After five years, one of the men came to Christ.  Muller continued praying for the other four,  and in ten years, two more were saved.  He prayed on for twenty-five years, and the fourth man  was converted. For the rest of his life, Muller continued  praying for the remaining man, but when he died in 1898,  the man was still unsaved. He had prayed for him for  fifty-two years. A few months after Muller’s death,  the fifth man also found Jesus Christ as his Savior.  D. L. Moody once wrote,  "Though we may not live to see the answer to our prayers,  if we cry mightily to God, the answer will come." Or, as E. M. Bounds, minister and chaplain during the  Civil War who wrote eight classic books on prayer, put it:  "Prayers are deathless."  The lips that uttered them may be closed in death, the  heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the  prayers live before God, and God’s heart is set on  them and prayers outlive the lives of those who  uttered them; outlive a generation, outlive an age,  outlive a world… Fortunate are they whose fathers and mother have left them a wealthy patrimony of prayer. -- Morgan, Robert J. ------------------ -- Matthew 21:22 (RSV) "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive,  if you have faith." -- Philippians 4:6 (RSV) "Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything  by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let  your requests be made known to God." -- Jude 1:20 (RSV) "But you, beloved, build yourselves up on  your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit." -- Matthew 7:7 (RSV) "Ask, and it will be given you;  seek, and you will find;  knock, and it will be opened to you."