I recently met a seasoned intercessor named Laurel Brooks. She has a remarkable story.
In the 1980s, Laurel landed a job through a temp agency, as an assistant to the secretary of CompuShop, a computer distribution company.
God had other plans.
Join others crying out to the Lord day and night.
A fledgling personal computer company bought out CompuShop and some other distribution organizations. Laurel went from being a job agency temp to joining a team at — are you ready for this? — Apple Computer, under Steve Jobs! Wow!
Laurel was gifted for administration and leadership, and the company took notice. The 23-year-old was given charge of administering the East Coast region. Soon her action plan caught the eye of Apple’s then president, Gene Carter, and he decided to use her ideas nationwide and in Canada. Before long, she was training people across the nation.
Laurel was taking on a lot of responsibility and excelling, but something had changed. She began to battle chronic illness. She believed that the massive workload and the stress that came along with it were taking a toll on her health. Her disease was debilitating. It impacted her marriage and other aspects of her life. Laurel wasn’t just a leader in the marketplace; she was also a wife, mother, prayer warrior, and follower of Jesus Christ.
She remembers praying, fasting, crying, and waiting on God for years to heal her. She refused to give up. She kept believing — for decades. Then, 37 years later, the Lord did it. One day in October 2018, the Lord healed her. The pain and the symptoms were gone. The days became weeks, and she realized she had been symptom-free for an entire month. She knew the Lord had answered her cries for healing. Laurel learned a lesson in her waiting.
There is power in persistent prayer.
To persist is to be continual, endless, enduring, tenacious, and unrelenting. Our prayers should be persistent, according to Scripture.
One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up (Luke 18:1 NLT).
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18).
Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere (Ephesians 6:18 NLT).
Persistence gets the Lord’s attention: He heard blind Bartimaeus shouting, while people were telling him to shut up (Mark 10:46–52). He heard Anna’s intercessions day and night in the temple over many years (Luke 2:36–38). In Luke 18 Jesus tells us to learn a lesson from a persistent widow who refused to be denied justice.
He heard the prayers of Laurel Brooks in her anguish. It took 37 years, but she never wavered. She trusted the Lord, and in His time, He healed her. This is what faith looks like. None of the people cited above ever knew when or if God would answer their cries, but that never deterred them, because they prayed believing that He would answer, and He did.
Faith is your key to persisting in prayer.
What about you? Have you, like Laurel, suffered long from a physical illness? Have you wrestled with mental anguish? Are you waiting on God and believing for your healing? I am too.
Keep praying, and never give up!
Are you praying for an unsaved spouse, for a prodigal, or for a loved one — only to see them keep drifting further from God? So am I. Keep praying, and never give up!
Have you grown weary of praying for our nation and its leaders when you see so much corruption and evil? I have been too. But keep praying, and never give up!
Do you ever wonder if all your tears, anguish, and prayers are in vain? We have all felt overwhelmed by the weight of our prayer burdens. Keep praying, and never give up!
Laurel shares some nuggets of wisdom she learned through her battle, and she encourages you to keep pressing on for whatever you are believing God to do.
“Never stop praying! There is no reason to ever stop believing,” she says. “Even if we see no answer to what we’ve been praying for, we give ourselves to reckless abandon. We have faith that He can do it. We believe that He can do it, but even if He doesn’t, we will trust the Lord, no matter what.”
She ends with an important question: “Will you trust Him in the midst of everything you see?”
The heroes of faith did just that.
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect (Hebrews 11:39–40).
Many of the Bible heroes we know and love so much did not receive every promise by the end of their earthly journey. And yet the hope of those promises did remain to them, because God is faithful. They are still commended for their faith and their mighty exploits. They lived their lives through in obedience and enduring hope, with the expectation of ultimately receiving what God had promised. We know that they are set forth as examples for us today. Your faith, your obedience, your confident hope in Who He is, and your unrelenting expectation — all of these taken together are the key to prevailing in prayer.
Keep praying, and never give up.
“ … But the question is: When I, the Messiah, return, how many will I find who have faith and are praying?” (Luke 18:8b TLB).
Did Laurel’s story and example of persistence encourage you? Share below what you have been praying and believing God for.
IFA Contributing Writer Gloria Robles is a passionate intercessor with a prophetic voice for today. For more from Gloria, go to Spotify or Anchor to listen to her podcast, Something To Share. Photo Credit: Fa Barboza on Unsplash.