「耶穌又對他們講一個比喻，是要人常常禱告，不可灰心。」－路加福音18:1
當我們開始為著某件事情禱告時，經過了一天、一週，甚至一個月，若無法得到明確答案，常常我們就心灰意冷，就此不再為這件事禱告了。
這絕對是錯誤的。若我們四處起頭卻得不到一個結果，對生命的各面是極具傷害性的。
習慣有頭無尾的人，已經養成失敗的習慣。照樣，一旦我們累積許多這樣虎頭蛇尾的禱告，我們就養成了失敗禱告的習慣。
起先只是一點灰心的感覺，逐漸就釀造為失望，漸漸得就不信神的應許，最後，就只有失敗的分。
有人問：「我們要禱告多久呢？不能簡單的將事情交託給神，然後就一勞永逸了嗎？」其實答案只有一個：禱告直到你已得著了你所求的，或直到你已經得著神應允的確證。
只有在這兩種情況下，才能停下我們的禱告。因為禱告不僅是向著神的呼籲，禱告還是與撒但的爭戰；透過我們的禱告，神能夠獲得勝利。
所以是神，而不是我們，能決定何時該停下禱告。一旦開始禱告，就不能輕易的停止，除非禱告得著答應，除非我們得到神確切的明證。－禱告的實行
"He spoke a parable unto them?that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1).No temptation in the life of intercession is more common than this of failure to persevere. We begin to pray for a certain thing; we put up our petitions for a day, a week, a month; and then, receiving as yet no definite answer, straightway we faint, and cease altogether from prayer concerning it.
This is a deadly fault. It is simply the snare of many beginnings with no completions. It is ruinous in all spheres of life.
The man who forms the habit of beginning without finishing has simply formed the habit of failure. The man who begins to pray about a thing and does not pray it through to a successful issue of answer has formed the same habit in prayer.
To faint is to fail; then defeat begets disheartenment, and unfaith in the reality of prayer, which is fatal to all success.
But someone says, "How long shall we pray? Do we not come to a place where we may cease from our petitions and rest the matter in God's hands?"
There is but one answer. Pray until the thing you pray for has actually been granted, or until you have the assurance in your heart that it will be.
Only at one of these two places dare we stay our importunity, for prayer is not only a calling upon God, but also a conflict with Satan. And inasmuch as God is using our intercession as a mighty factor of victory in that conflict, He alone, and not we, must decide when we dare cease from our petitioning. So we dare not stay our prayer until the answer itself has come, or until we receive the assurance that it will come.
In the first case we stop because we see. In the other, we stop because we believe, and the faith of our heart is just as sure as the sight of our eyes; for it is faith from, yes, the faith of God, within us.
More and more, as we live the prayer life, shall we come to experience and recognize this God-given assurance, and know when to rest quietly in it, or when to continue our petitioning until we receive it. --The Practice of Prayer
