Day 19 – Lord, Hear Me
That God hears our prayers is truly amazing!
The God who is “the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:15-16) – this God hears me when I pray!
Talking to a person we can see is natural and normal, even through the virtual world of Zoom or a video chat. Talking to a person we cannot see is also natural and normal if we can hear them on a cell phone.
But we can’t see God. We don’t hear his audible voice. So on the communication scale, talking to God might feel unnatural and abnormal. We may wonder if our words are really getting through.
Plus, when we’re suffering or distraught we might find it harder to believe that God really hears our cries, like Job, when he wished he had an audience with God (Job 31:35).
Yet God assures us: “Does he who fashioned the ear not hear?” (Psalm 94:9). “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24).
Through Christ’s work on the cross, God opened the way for us to approach him with confidence (Hebrews 10:19-22). Our every cry is taken up into heaven. Our every word touches the living God. Our every expression is received by our loving Father above.
I have a psychology book that I like to pull off the shelf periodically and reread the chapter written by the famous psychologist Carl Rogers. He said simply, “I like to be heard.”
Rogers writes: “When a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, ‘Thank God, somebody heard me. Someone knows what it’s like to be me.’” We like to be heard.
We could add: “Thank God, for God himself has heard me! Because the eternal God became a human person, Jesus, he knows what it’s like to be me.”
Jesus further modeled praying with confidence to his Father in heaven: “I knew that you always hear me” (John 11:42).
We all like to be heard, really heard. And we can be confident that God wonderfully, fully, really hears us. “Lord, hear me.”
Prayer: “Let me know with confidence as you did, Lord Jesus, that the Father always hears me when I pray – always.”
~ Pastor Dave
