One of the most difficult things that we contend with in prayer is what we are seeing and hearing.

When at the invitation of Jesus, Peter stepped out of the boat on that stormy night in the Sea of Galilee, he was actually walking on water (Matthew 14:29).

Then we are told, “But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30).

While his invisible faith in Christ caused Peter to walk on water, when he looked at the physical circumstances, the wind and surging waves that were battering the disciples’ boat, Peter began to sink.

If we are praying for a loved one, the worst thing that you can do is to focus on their actions or the things they are saying or writing on social media, because these can cause us to lose heart and quit praying.

Famed Bible teacher, John Piper, said, “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life (or others), but you may only be aware of three of them.”

Whether we realize it or not, God is always at work. Most of this is taking place behind the scenes, and we are completely unaware of what is happening.

This was actually the main point of one of Jesus’ parables on prayer. It involved the story of a woman contending with an evil judge, who she had approached about seeking justice.

We are told that the judge feared neither God or man. I think in a nutshell justice was for sale in that town and when the woman brought her case, the judge ignored her.

When she phoned, he refused to take her call.

When she came again and again, the Judge was always too busy to hear her case or was out for lunch.

But Jesus makes two important statements to help us understand this parable.

First the Lord starts off by saying, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).

In other words the whole purpose of this story is to convince us not to lose heart and quit praying.

The second thing that Jesus said, was “hear what this judge says” (verse 6). The Lord wants us to take a closer look at his words because they are important, but perhaps not in the way you think.

In this short story, the judge made only one statement.

“For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” (Luke 18:4-5 NASV)

Because the woman was continually coming to him, the judge had changed his mind and decided to give her justice, just to get rid of her.

But the key to this story is these words, “he said to himself.” He did not make this statement to the woman. All she heard up to now was no, and no and no.

He did not say this to his wife or fellow court workers. He spoke these words to himself. No one, other than God, knew what this judge was thinking.

While on the outside, the judge was through his actions and words saying no, on the inside he was wavering. After he made that statement to himself, the woman needed to petition the judge one more time to get the justice she wanted.

If the woman focused solely on externals, she would have quit long ago. Given up.

But she didn’t.

This is the key to answered prayer, we must look beyond what we are seeing and hearing.

In a sense, we must close our eyes when we pray and focus on the invisible, knowing that God is at work.