Luke 18 is all about being heard.

First, in Jesus’s signature story-form, we find a widow hanging on to her last thread of hope; unfortunately, her hope is found in a Gentile judge (not a picture of God, btw) who has little time for her. Nevertheless, through persistence, she at last gets a hearing and a judgment…in her favor.

We transition to a true-to-life episode that contrasts two worshipers at the Temple. One is in his customary pew, spouting off all the religious jargon of a prig (C.S. Lewis’s word), while the other won’t dare set a foot inside the narthex lest he be struck by lightning. One expects he will be heard (he is not), and the other only dreams of being heard (he is), at which we find he gets, not a day in court, but a seat at the table.

Next we see playful Jesus bouncing babies on his knee. The disciples lose their bleep and try to whisk the little hooligans off to their mothers. In no uncertain terms, the Lamb of God lets his men know they had best leave well enough alone. In fact, if they resist the bleatings and shovings of little lambs to be under the watchful eye of the Shepherd, they’d find themselves outside the pen.

Widows need justice.

Tax collectors need mercy.

Children need time.

All need Jesus.

And all just want the ear of the King.

As the chapter rolls out, nearing its end, a blind beggar is straining to be heard over the loud din of a gathered mob as the God-Man Jesus passes by. Blind “son of Timothy” (he’s so much an afterthought the poor fellow does not even warrant a name) is not seen and he is not heard – at first. Everyone around him tells the pathetic man to shush as the Holy Man cannot be bothered by someone who is so obviously a wretched sinner. He’s having none of it. The scripture tells us all the bluster just made him “call out even louder.” The man wanted to be heard.

I love the next two words that come next:

“Jesus stopped.” (Luke 18:40)

Let your ears rest on those words and dispel every other noise around you right now.

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He stopped.

Earlier, God, as the father in the prodigal story, is seen running. Here, he stops in his tracks.

You have to remember Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on mission to do what he came to do. Earlier in this same gospel we learn Jesus “set himself to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and Isaiah  adds color to this with his face being countenanced like “flint” – so hard and firm and resolute was his bent to go forward to Calvary.

He stopped his march,

his mission,

time,

everything.

In that sacred second all held their breath as Jesus turned his piercing gaze from the road ahead to the tragic figure on the fringe of the crowd. Those lyrical eyes looked past the religious, the zealous, the able-bodied, the excited, the would-be followers, all of the rabble, and found him.

The throng had no choice but to part like the Red Sea as the poor man was brought to the Healer. The exchange took all of forty-five seconds, maybe a minute.

After all, what’s a minute delay when there’s a chance to change a person’s life?

Pilate would wait for him.

Judas would have time enough to plan his dirty deed.

The High Priest could use the extra minute to consider his ways.

Barabbas would be cool with it, considering how his fate would turn.

But the Son of Timothy? This was his only shot, and he was going to be heard.

Something else I love about the story is that it sheds light on the earlier scripture about the widow and her repeated appeals to the “unrighteous judge.” If you wait a tick, you’ll find that Scripture interprets Scripture.

That passage you’re struggling to make light of, keep reading; the hidden will come to light. I have often puzzled over that story until one day I realized God is NOT the judge of that parable. Unfortunately, the caustic judge  – to many – is exactly who God is to them: obstinate, uncaring, elusive, aloof, mean-spirited, vindictive. This is not the point of the parable, proven by this moment of mercy for the blind beggar on the road outside Jericho.

He called out more intensely on that roadside. He would be heard. He would not take NO for an answer. *That* is the point of the earlier parable. But rather than nagging, you just up the ante.

The key to being heard, to getting the attention of God, is not verbosity but intensity.

God is not listening for a casual, half-hearted, ritual, repetitive, obligatory prayer, but he will stop in his tracks for a cry from a wounded soul.

In 2009 I prayed again and again like a persistent widow for God to do something for me I couldn’t do for myself. Each and every prayer was important to God, and I know he heard, but was waiting to hear the shrill edge of my desperation. That came weeks later as I was “quiet-timing with God” in my van. I simply but straightforwardly said:

If you don’t, God, it won’t. I don’t want to live another day with this. Oh God, I don’t have the strength to ask for it again. I’m tired. I’m desperate. Please…

Do you ever get the inexplicable sense when something shifts in the atmosphere? That happened to me as soon as my prayer trailed off. I didn’t even want to add an amen. I just left it at the Healer’s feet and crawl into his lap. I called out one more time, and I was heard.

God stopped for me.

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard God audibly, but it came pretty close in the front cab of my van.

I’ve heard you, Scott. I will answer your prayer – you won’t like the way the way I do it, but you will give praise to me in the end. I am with you. Trust me, Scott…

It may not have been these words exactly, but you get the gist. I needn’t tell you that my cry was supernaturally, specifically, and spectacularly answered within a few very dark and grueling months. There were moments I felt abandoned and more than a few when I felt fearful of the outcome, but God won the day and my testimony stands as a ‘miktam’ (Psalm 16): archived in holy writ, penned in 24-carat gold. It is my story and I’m sticking to it.

What are you wanting God to stop and do for you? Sometimes the hardest part of ‘faithing’ is in the last half-hour, when it seems like God isn’t going to come through.

F. B. Meyer offers this counsel:

The lock of prayer sometimes turns hard, and calls for strength of purpose. The kingdom of heaven has to be taken by force. Let us pray so that our prayers may reverberate with repeated blows on the gates of God’s presence chamber.

“Repeated blows.”

Maybe, just maybe, the next blow that falls will stop God in his tracks and break the door down. Keep hammering away with your prayers, beloved. You’ll get his attention. I promise. I’ve got scripture and a testimony that proves it’s so.