The Locked Room

“And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” — Luke 18:1 (ESV)

On the very afternoon Hudson Taylor sat reading that booklet, his mother was seventy or eighty miles away, and she could not stop thinking about him. She got up from lunch with what she later called an intense longing for her son’s conversion, and she realised that being away from home, with no chores and no interruptions, had handed her a rare stretch of free hours. So she went to her room, turned the key in the lock, and made herself a promise: she would not leave that spot until God answered.

Hour after hour she prayed for him. And then something strange happened. At a certain point she found she could not keep asking — instead she was moved to start thanking God, because she was somehow sure the thing was already done. Her son was converted. She did not know how she knew; she just praised God for it and got up.

When she came home a fortnight later, Hudson ran to meet her at the door, bursting to tell her his news. Before he could get it out, she put her arms around him and said, “I know, my boy. I have been rejoicing for a fortnight in the glad tidings you have to tell me.” He was baffled — he had told only his sister, and sworn her to secrecy. His mother assured him she had heard it from no human being at all, and told him about the locked room.

There was more. Some time later Hudson picked up a little pocket-book he thought was his own, opened it, and found it was his sister Amelia’s diary. One entry stopped him: she had resolved to pray for her brother’s conversion every single day until God answered. He worked out the date. It was exactly one month before the afternoon he knelt down in the warehouse.

Now, be careful how you read this. The point is not that Taylor’s mother forced God’s hand by staying in a room, as if prayer were a machine where enough hours in one end produces a result out the other. If you have ever prayed hard for someone and watched nothing change, you know that is not how it works, and pretending otherwise only breaks your heart. What this story shows is something quieter and tougher: two people who kept praying for one specific person, over weeks and months, without any visible sign that it was doing a thing — and did not give up.

That is exactly what Jesus’ words in Luke are about. He did not say “pray until you feel like stopping.” He said pray “and do not lose heart.” The temptation is never really to quit praying; it is to quietly conclude it is pointless and drift off. Taylor’s mother refused to drift. His sister wrote it down and held herself to it daily. Neither of them could see the warehouse, or the booklet, or the phrase that would undo him. They just kept asking.

If you are a Christian, there is almost certainly a name that belongs to you the way Hudson’s belonged to his mother — a friend, a sibling, a parent who wants nothing to do with God. You cannot argue them into the kingdom, you cannot manufacture the moment truth lands, and you will usually get zero feedback. What you can do is refuse to lose heart.

One thing to do this week: pick one person you long to see come to God, and write their name down somewhere you will actually see it — the back of your journal, a note on your phone. Then commit to praying for them by name once a day for a set stretch of time, whether or not anything appears to happen. Taylor was living proof that the person being prayed for often has no idea it is going on.