Pray Until the Answer Comes

Mary Warburton Booth, a missionary to abused girls in India, received a letter from the mission board requesting her to "close down some of the work and cut down expenses."

She sat down before the Lord and asked Him what she should do. She felt she must have a specific answer. She knew that she needed to have this prayer "prayed through and that this is the most difficult kind of praying."

Would she pray until she knew if God wanted her to close down the work or trust Him to provide? As she put it, "Did I love Him well enough to wait for Him?"

Mary went to prayer to ask for a definite answer. She describes her difficulties: "The hindrances to prayer in India are legion. Satan has every device ready to keep you from praying through. The calls are imperative, the climate exhausting, and the insect life so collective that you are reminded always that mosquitoes love you.

 "I do not think he [Satan] minds our praying about things if we leave it at that. What he minds, and opposes steadily, is the prayer that prays on until it is prayed through, assured of the answer." Mary knew she must pray or fail-that she would either pray through or give up praying.
And so she waited before Him until He gave her His plan.

God led her to gather the twelve teachers together and she repeatedly read to them God's promise in Malachi 3: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse...and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."

It was God's voice to them, and they promised to obey. When payday arrived they eagerly paid their tithes. Money from unexpected sources also began to arrive, saving their mission work.

Jesus, help us to love You enough to continue in prayer until we know You have heard and the answer is on the way.

"If we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John 5:15).