Thoughts in Worship

Message Magazine's Online Devotional for Thursday, May 7, 2015

Based Upon Luke 18:1-8

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I’d like to take this opportunity to incite the ever-raging battle of the sexes. It is a scientific fact, proven by double-blind brain scans where placebo responses are measured against that of the smooth grey backs of lab controlled rats that were given the actual stimuli, that women talk much more than men. In these consistently consistent studies, women in every culture, whether known or unknown, always exhaust the mandated word quota given to each human being at birth. Men on the other hand consistently have rollover minutes for the following day. As I said, women absolutely and consistently talk more than men.

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It is quite possible that you have detected the hypocrisy of my not-so-well crafted findings on female verbosity in my excessively verbose explanation of a potentially false claim. I suppose we will not settle this dispute during the few minutes I have for this devotional, which I have already begun to squander.

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Whatever is actually true concerning this battle, we do have an accurate account of one very chatty woman who knew how to get her case heard by an unjust judge with little patience for talkative women. Here’s the story according to the NLT record of Luke 18:1-8: “One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’ ” Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”” (Luke 18:1–8, NLT).

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This chatty woman is driving me crazy! At least that is what the unjust judge said. What was her message though? For what purpose did she weary this man with a consistent barrage of requests? Justice! This woman wanted justice. All-too-often the voices advocating justice are squelched either by those who are quite fine with the status quo, or overshadowed by opportunists who commit evil acts to get everybody’s attention. But this poor widow would stop at nothing to have her legitimate cause heard and the ideal of justice realized. And as a result of her undaunted persistence, the judge granted her justice quickly. If a judge who had no respect for God or people gave this woman the justice she sought just to shut her up and make her go away, how much more will our loving heavenly Father give us all we need when we seek Him day and night?

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While it seems to me that women speak more words per day than men, and men seem to listen less than women, one thing is certainly true regardless of these perceptions or misperceptions—God loves to hear the voices of His people lifted in petitions to Him. He loves to hear our prayers. He loves to answer them according to our needs and His providence. We cannot weary Him with our requests and verbose discussions of our daily experiences. While some people talk so much that others cannot get a word in edge-wise, we would do well to tell God all that is on our minds, but then it is critical to invest quality time in listening for His response. God also has much to say. Are you listening?—L. David Harris (www.davidwritesalot.com)