It is a perplexing world in which we live – uncertain and bewildering. Life motivated one driver to put on his automobile bumper a sticker announcing to everyone behind it, ‘Life is hard and then you die.” Prophets of doom and gloom are everywhere.

Jesus, on the other hand, gathered His people around Him one day and told them a story. He told them this story “to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart” (Luke 18:1-8). Consequently we will not be putting on the church marquee the words of the bumper sticker theologian. Instead we invite everybody to gather around Jesus, listen to his story, and not become bitter, hard and cynical.

Life is hard, by the way, but Jesus calls us not to lose heart. Jesus calls us to the Father before whom we are invited to pour out our woes, or stories, and our lives. We are invited to the Father where Jesus says we will be heard and received.

Life is hard. Some things are just about unbearably hard. Some things rip at the heart and devastate the emotions. There are some things over which we simply must come before God and “cry to Him day and night.” And, the word of Jesus in these matters is that to those who do cry out to God day and night, He will bring about justice.

God does have a question, however. Jesus says, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:8)? Can we keep looking unto God when life keeps barreling down on us? When the times are hard and the temptation to cynicism is great what will we conclude, that Life is hard and then you die, or that life is hard but God is still God? Shall we give up or shall we give everything up to God? Jesus says, pray and don’t lose heart.

I’m with Him on this. Shall we pray together?