Just as she approached this unjust judge for relief, so we come to God with our needs, needs which only he can meet. We come to him as supplicants with urgent matters to bring before him. In our case we have many things to bring to our heavenly Father besides complaints about injustices done to us, and requests for retribution. We come first of all to ask for forgiveness, for salvation in Jesus Christ, for understanding and life in the soul. We call upon the God of grace and mercy. We come also to praise God, and to thank him, and we intercede for others. But the focus here is on our supplications. We seek redress from God against our enemies: against spiritual forces of darkness which oppose us throughout the Christian life, and against human oppressors who persecute God’s children.
Where then does the difficulty come from? What is the obstacle to our receiving an answer from God? It comes from our own unbelief, and the flood of discouragements that Satan pours into our hearts, and the deadening influence of this world on our faith. It is difficult to approach someone who you do not believe is sympathetic to you, or who you think has no intention of answering you. That thought kills all inclination to come. Satan is therefore busy telling everyone of us that God is against us because of our sin, that he does not want to hear us, that he is not going to answer us, and there is therefore no point in praying to him. He pours an avalanche of negative thoughts into our minds as we come to pray. The result, if we listen to him, is that we faint spiritually. We give up prayer because we believe what the devil says: that prayer is a vain exercise. Christ knows the battle we face, and this parable is designed to help us overcome these negative thoughts.
Christ identifies the sort of discouragements that might stop us praying. We may interpret God’s delay in answering us as his unwillingness to ever answer us. That would be a completely wrong conclusion, but it is one that comes into our minds. Prayer is a struggle in which ‘we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Ephesians 6:12). ‘God is never going to answer me’, we may think. ‘He would rather I stop asking him.’ Every sort of discouragement and doubt and fear is thrown into our minds. All these ideas are the lies of the devil, and yet we have to learn to cope with them. For the seeker this is especially hard, because as yet he has no experience of God in his life. He must proceed on the basis of God’s promises. Christ who cannot lie says, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28); and ‘him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out’ (John 6:37).