Let delay and denial increase our prayers

'We have need, too, to give thought to that mysterious fact of prayer -- the certainty that there will be delays, denials, and seeming failures, in connection with its exercise. Weare to prepare for these, to brook them, and cease not in our urgent praying. Like a brave soldier, who, as the conflict grows sterner, exhibits a superior courage than in the earlier stages of the battle; so does the praying Christian, when delay and denial face him, increase his earnest asking, and ceases not until prayer prevail. Moses furnishes an illustrious example of importunity in prayer. Instead of allowing his nearness to God and his intimacy with Him to dispense with the necessity for importunity, he regards them as the better fitting him for its exercise. When Israel set up the golden calf, the wrath of God waxed fierce against them, and Jehovah, bent on executing justice, said to Moses when divulging what He purposed doing, "Let Me alone!" But Moses would not let Him alone. He threw himself down before the Lord in an agony of intercession in behalf of the sinning Israelites, and for forty days and nights, fasted and prayed. What a season of importunate prayer was that!'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 37)

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Deu_9:25  Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you. Deu 9:26  I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Deu 9:27  Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: Deu 9:28  Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness. Deu 9:29  Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm. 

Deu_10:10  And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee

Truth!

Forty days and forty nights Moses fell down before the Lord because he didn't want the people of Israel destroyed.  We talk about instant answers, instant satisfaction, instant acknowledgement, and yet men of God- CHOSEN by God- found themselves in importunate prayer that was anything but instantly response to.  They prayed desperate prayers. They prayed LONG prayers. They lived in prayer as they sought the Lord's help, the Lord's favor, the Lord's mercy.  As they prayed they KNEW the LORD loved them and only wanted what was best, never ever refusing to answer their prayers, He always heard and they knew He did and His responses were given out of LOVE.

May WE pray this way! May we look to our examples in God's word.

All by HIS LOVE!