Persistent Prayer: Lessons from the Canaanite Woman

When God seems silent, it’s easy to give up. But the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 shows us what persistent prayer really looks like. In this episode, I share her story and what it teaches us about pressing in, refusing to be offended, and trusting that Jesus hears and cares—even when the answer seems far away.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Book Announcement
• 4:53 Covered in Prayer Event Recap
• 6:29 Parents Bringing Children to Jesus
• 9:20 The Canaanite Woman's Story
• 15:41 Pressing Through Silence and Rejection
• 19:50 Final Encouragement and Book Promotion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:13

Hello and welcome back to Grace For my Home. I'm Audrey McCracken and I'm so glad to be back with you again this week. I hope that you're doing well. We are. We're doing great. School is about to start back. We have about one week before our kids are back in school, and so we're trying to squeeze the last little bit of fun out of summer. So we're looking forward to the new year, the new school year. Some other news this week I released my second book. It's called Seek First 31 Quiet Moments with Jesus, and I'm really excited about it.

Speaker 1: 1:53

I wrote this book as a help for you during your devotional time. You know, when my children were young, when they were little, we would go to the park and they always want to go on the swings. But they were so short that when they sat in the seat on the swing their feet wouldn't touch the ground, they couldn't push off, they couldn't get any traction, and so I had three. So of course one would be on the swing and one would want to be over on the monkey bars, and the other wants to be on the slide. So the one on the swing. If I could just give him a good push, you know, he would build up the momentum, swinging back and forth and he could keep it going, but he just needed a push. And that's kind of how it is. That's how I see these devotionals. Sometimes we sit down with our Bible and we have good intentions, but it's just hard to get started and you know, if I can help you, if I can just give you a push, you know something to think about, maybe a scripture. You know, maybe you start praying my prayer, but as you start going, you get your own momentum and then you pray your own prayers, but it got you started. You get your own momentum and then you pray your own prayers, but it got you started. So that's the purpose behind these two books is, first of all, to give you that little push and, second of all, to help you connect with Jesus, because he's where the life is. You know he is our life, he is the one that we want to talk to, and so I hope that this book and my other book will be a blessing to you. Check it out on Amazon I'll leave the link in the show notes and if you are blessed by it, if you enjoy it, I would so appreciate you sharing it with a friend sharing it on social media, leaving me a review. All of those things help people find this book, which hopefully will be an encouragement and a blessing to them, and it will be a blessing to me also. So check that out. It's called Seek First 31 Quiet Moments with Jesus, and let me know how you like it.

Speaker 1: 3:49

This past Saturday we had our Covered in Prayer event for moms at Awaken Coffee Bar and I will tell you, we had such a good time. It was such a blessing. I had three listeners from the podcast who came. They drove from North Carolina and came and participated in our Covered in Prayer event and it was so nice to have them. And then we had several from several locals that were in the area who came, and I believe that the Lord was there and answered and heard and answered our prayers. I mean, you just felt the presence of the Lord. It was just so nice to be able to encourage each other to pray for each other, and I'm very thankful. I'm thankful for all of those who helped and planned and it was successful and it was so successful. And we'm very thankful. I'm thankful for all of those who helped and planned and I just it was successful, and it was so successful and we enjoyed it so much that I think we're going to try and do it again. I think we're going to try and put it on a rotation and so that we can continue to grow and and minister to each other and just see what God wants to do. It was that successful. So thank you to all who prayed and who participated. It was so nice seeing you and having you there and if you couldn't make it, I would love to have you at the next one and I'll keep you informed. So today I'm going to share with you the message that I shared Saturday night, and I hope that it will be a blessing to you. And the message that I shared was about the access that we have to Jesus in prayer.

Speaker 1: 5:24

So many miracles started with a mom or a dad bringing their child to Jesus for prayer, and you know, in John 4, there is a father in Capernaum who brought, who came to Jesus and asked him to please touch his son, and Jesus did. In Luke 7, Jesus raised a widow's son from the dead. And in Matthew 9, one of the leaders of the synagogue, Jairus. He came to Jesus and asked that Jesus come and pray for his daughter because she was sick. She actually died before he got there. He prayed for her and she sat up.

Speaker 1: 6:07

And so there's so many stories in the Bible. You know the story in Matthew 17, where there is a boy who keeps falling into the fire. Some people speculate that that boy had epilepsy or he had a condition, that he had seizures and the father asked him. He said, Jesus, if you can heal my son? And Jesus said, if you know, I'm giving you my modern paraphrase if. And the father says, Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief. And that is such a great prayer for us as mothers, to pray for our children. You know, sometimes there are things that we want to believe God for, but it just seems like such a huge ask. You know, Lord, I need you to do this for me, I need you to do this for my son or for my daughter. And you know, and it's like we go to the Lord and it's Lord, I need you to do this. I believe, Lord, help my unbelief. And that's a prayer that Jesus answers.

Speaker 1: 7:07

But one of my favorite stories in the Bible of a mom who brings her child to Jesus is the story of the Seraphim woman, and it's mentioned twice in the Bible. Matthew recorded it in Matthew 15. And Luke recorded it in chapter seven of his gospel. But this woman come to Jesus and she was different from all the other moms and dads and the thing that made her different was that she was not of the Jewish race, she was not a covenant child of God. At this time, only the Jews were in covenant with God and Jesus had been sent as the Messiah, the King of the Jews. And he was not sent. At that time we didn't know, and he hadn't announced, hadn't been made known that Jesus was going to open up the good news, the covenant, not just to the Jewish people but to all people. And so this woman comes to Jesus with no promise, no promise that he is going to help, and he has no, I guess you'd say, requirement to help, because he knows that the covenant, at this time the covenant was for the Jewish people. But let's read this story. It's a really good story and it's kind of short, so let's read it. It's in Matthew 15, 21 through 28. And I'm going to read out of the NIV version and this is how it reads, and this is what it says, and this is how it reads, and this is what it says Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

Speaker 1: 8:48

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him crying out Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is demon possessed and suffering terribly. Jesus did not answer her a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us. He answered I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. The woman came and knelt before him. Lord, help me, she said. He replied it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs. Yes, it is Lord, she said. So here's a woman who knows that she is outside of the covenant of Israel. She even calls him son of David. She is a Canaanite woman. These were not his people, but she comes to him and asks for mercy. Lord, heal my daughter. She is suffering terribly. And you know what? Jesus did not answer her a word. Have you ever felt like that? I'm praying, but Jesus, he's not answering a word.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Jesus was silent and from an outside observer it would seem that he was uninterested or didn't care, because he didn't even answer her. And then his disciples. She didn't get any pity from them. They came to Jesus and said please send her away. You know she keeps crying out after us. They were just annoyed. You know they didn't have any compassion in their heart for her or any desire to help her. They just wanted Jesus to send her away. And so, after they begged him, please send her away.

Speaker 1: 10:47

He does speak to her, he answers her and he says I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, so he's not giving her much hope. You know he's instead of answering her prayer. He's basically rejecting her. He's telling her you're not part of my covenant. Answering her prayer. He's basically rejecting her. He's telling her you're not part of my covenant, I'm not sent to you.

Speaker 1: 11:06

But she does not let that discourage her. She doesn't let his silence stop her. She presses past the silence and then she doesn't even let what seems to be a rejection or a no stop her. She presses past those places until she keeps knocking on the door. She presses past those hindrances and she said Lord, help me, Lord, help me. She calls him Lord, she bows before him. She's recognizing that he is the master and then he says it's not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs, Because anybody who was outside of the covenant the Jews regarded as a dog. They were unclean, and so he's basically calling this woman a dog. He has, you know, he's gone from ignoring her and rejecting her to offending her, to calling her a dog, and she does not get offended. She refuses to get offended and she says yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. She recognizes him as not just Lord or King of the Jews, but King of all the earth.

Speaker 1: 12:25

She, she believes. I believe in her heart. She believed if I can just get to him, I know he will help me. You know, I don't have any reason to believe that he would help me, I just know he will help me and her faith. Jesus commends her faith. He said great is your faith. And her faith, her trust in God, her refusal to be denied an audience with him and a refusal to walk away without the answer to her prayer. It pays off in the end and the scripture reads that Jesus said woman, you have great faith, your request is granted and her daughter was healed at that moment. And I think we can learn a lot from this woman. We have a covenant with God. We are his children. We believe the covenant has been opened up to us and we are his children now. And so we go to him with a request and we knock his children now. And so we go to him with a request and we knock on his door. We have more hope to believe than she did, but I believe he was testing her faith. I believe he had a desire from the very beginning to answer her request.

Speaker 1: 13:39

But sometimes our faith is stretched by his silence and sometimes our faith is stretched by the apparent denial of our request. And sometimes our faith is tested when things happen and it feels like the Lord is not just ignoring us but he's unkind. You know, sometimes we don't understand the Lord's way. Sometimes things happen. It's like Lord, why, Lord? How could you let this happen, Lord? Why, why is this happening to my family? Why has this happened to my child? And you know I don't understand all those questions. I can't answer all those questions. I can't answer all those questions.

Speaker 1: 14:24

But I can tell you that when we press into Jesus, he will give us what we need. You know, he is kind, even when it seems like he's unkind. He cares about us, even when it feels like he's cold. But we have to keep pressing in, we have to refuse to be denied, we have to refuse to be offended at Him, and he will reward our faith, the faith that we didn't give up on Him. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean he's going to answer our prayers the way we want them answered. It doesn't necessarily mean he's going to do exactly what we've asked him to do, but I believe that our faith will not be disappointed, that he will give us what we need, how we need it, when we need it, and it will bring us in closer relationship with him. She had a breakthrough. She had a, but she had a breakthrough in faith, and I believe that through this woman he is showing us don't stop coming, Don't stop pressing in. You keep asking. Sometimes the answer isn't just for you, but it's for those who are watching.

Speaker 1: 15:44

See, I know those disciples went away that day scratching their heads. You know, Jesus, he doesn't do things the way we think he's going to do things. He loves to jump out of our boxes. You know he loves to show a side of Him that we've never seen before, Just when we think we've got Him figured out. He loves to do something different. And I believe that day he did something different, right in the sight of all those disciples who ignored her and didn't think she was worth even listening to. Lord Jesus, just send her away. She's so annoying. Well, you know what. She refused to be offended at them or at Jesus, and I'm so thankful that this encounter was written down for us. We have more of a reason to believe that he will answer us than she did. But she refused to give up.

Speaker 1: 16:37

And guys come to Jesus with that kind of tenacity, with that kind of prayer, with that kind of hope that I will not be denied, that he will hear my prayer and that he cares. He cares about my daughter, he cares about my son, he cares about my circumstances more than I do, and even when it seems like he's distant, even when it feels like he's not paying attention, or even when he doesn't seem kind, that he has my best interest in mind, he cares for me. And the only way to get to that point where we have that breakthrough is to keep asking and to keep praying. Jesus told a parable of a woman who went before an unjust judge and kept asking for justice against her adversary. And the judge actually says. Of course it's a parable, but in his mind he reasons you know, I don't care about justice, but this woman's wearing me out, let's give her what she wants, so she'll leave me alone. And Jesus, in saying that, he made the comparison. If this judge, who is not just will give this woman, will answer this woman's request because of her many requests, then surely God, our Father, who is just, will hear our cries and answer us. And that's what this woman did. She kept coming, she kept coming, she pressed through. Even when it was easy to be offended at Jesus, she chose to believe that his kindness would win out in the end.

Speaker 1: 18:12

And I just want to encourage you this week pray, pray. Your children need your prayers. You need to see breakthrough. You need to see that Jesus is answering your prayers. But he cannot answer prayers. You don't pray, right. So let's keep praying, let's keep knocking on his door, let's keep bringing before him those that we love and we care about and trust that he has a good plan for them.

Speaker 1: 18:38

I hope that this message has been encouraging to you, especially if you've been praying and you just feel like giving up. Don't give up. Don't give up, Keep praying. God is listening and I would be so honored if you would go and purchase my book on Amazon Seek First, 31 Quiet Moments with Jesus by Audrey McCracken. I'll put the link in the show notes and my prayer is that it would bring fresh life into your quiet times. And let me know how you like it. Send me a text, an email, however you communicate a private message through Instagram or Facebook. I would so love to hear from you and, if you love it, leave me a review. Leave me a five-star Amazon review and until next time, God bless, have a great week.