Losing Heart – Luke 18:1-8

Losing heart is a real risk for frontline healthcare workers.  Renee Bacher at AARP writes about the need to address mental health in those helping others.  Little could have prepared health care workers in hot spots around the country for the kind of adrenaline rush that would accompany the surge of patients in ICUs last March, but as time wore on and the number of deaths rose, staff members became overwhelmed. Seeing so much death and sadness, fear of getting infected themselves and about infecting their families, took a huge toll on them.  There have been some suicides among these workers attributed to the discouragement of the pandemic. But losing heart is not limited to healthcare workers.

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  (Luke 18:1-8 ESV)

In light of the two phases of the kingdom, separated by how long no one knows, Jesus encourages his disciples that there will be justice, to some degree, speedily, and some delayed until his coming again.  Prayer is the key to not losing heart and knowing, in prayer, that God is more just than any human judge and loves His chosen ones.  He will meet our needs for justice as suitable to this time before the coming kingdom.  But we must remain in faith until Jesus returns to bring full justice.