does God roll his eyes at me?
Sometimes — if I am honest — I feel like I am bothering God. I know, I know. It’s not true. I shouldn’t think like that. That’s the Enemy. Yes. The Sunday School veteran in me is quickly hushing me, too. But like I said, in the name of honesty, I can’t help but realize that somewhere in the back of my mind while I’m praying to God about the same thing (for the millionth time), there’s a small part of me that thinks perhaps — just maybe — God is possibly rolling his eyes at my persistence. It sounds silly. But I also can’t help but admit that I totally get it if it was true. I don’t blame the Big Man. I’d roll my eyes at me, too.
I wish I had more faith. I’m 26 years into this Christian thing, but why do I sometimes still feel like a nagging child? I wish I was like the centurion man, who believed that with just one word everything would be okay. You see — Jesus marveled at his faith. Sometimes I believe like the centurion man, but if I’m honest, other times I find myself asking God about the same thing again and again and again. Like this morning. And then I find myself beating myself up for it.
But then I found something recently in Luke 18. A story about a persistent widow who would not give up. Jesus shares how her desperation led her to ask the judge until he granted her justice. Sure, the judge sounds a little frustrated. But what shocks me is how Jesus ends the story, not with a statement of annoyance, but one of fascination: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find such faith on the earth?” Do you see that? Jesus marveled at her faith, just like he did for the centurion man.
True story: I cried recently because I thought God was annoyed at my grit and never-ending insistence that He use me for His kingdom. I’m not sure when, but somewhere along the way, I began to believe that persistence equals the lack of faith. I began to think that the cry of desperation equals my misalignment with God’s heart and my inability to understand it. It’s almost as if I believed the size of someone’s faith was measured by the ease and simplicity of their petition.
But Jesus saw the widow’s persistence — which was anything but ease and simplicity — yet he not only called it prayer, but he claimed it as faith. Faith has nothing to do with frequency. Jesus is filled with wonder by both the child who asks his father once, as well as the child who asks again and again and again. Like the centurion, the former is confident and sure. Like the widow, the latter is undignified and shameless. Both caused Jesus to marvel.
Without a doubt, I’m certain some of my fashion choices, haircuts, and dance moves have left Heaven rolling its eyes. But there’s something freeing in knowing that never once has my persistence been a disappointment or an annoyance to the Father.
