Psalm 22: 24
For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him for help, He heard.
This is really good news. God has not hidden his face from you nor from anyone else. Regardless of how nasty and ugly your mess is, God has not and will not hide His face from you. And believe it or not, He has seen worse. Remember this is the same God that watched His son be tortured and crucified. So, your disaster is not going to shock Him. Moreover, no matter how big your mess, when you cry out to the Lord, He hears you and listens to you.
Now I know there is someone right now saying, “Hey, He didn’t hear me when I called.” Oh yes, He did. My evidence is the Word of God. What is yours? Are you saying God’s Word is not good? Did He lie? Of course, that is not true so something is wrong with your evidence.
Here is a problem that I have noticed and it may well answer the question of why you think God wasn’t listening to you. I have been praying for a number of people to be blessed (and don’t forget I pray for each of you every day as well). So, I’m praying for blessings for these folks and two things have happened that I have noticed. The first dynamic is that a blessing comes to them and they turn it down or turn it away. They have trouble receiving for whatever reason. Now they want to be blessed, but they don’t know how to receive a blessing. The other thing I have noticed is that sometimes when the blessing does make its way through, they don’t recognize it. They never stop and appreciate the miracle that just occurred in their lives. They let these things slip by almost unnoticed. In fact, they kind of hold their breath waiting for it to blow up because they really don’t believe God is going to bless them. Sometimes I have had the opportunity to point out the move of God for them and it makes quite an impression then.
You see, many times we really don’t expect God to bless us, so we actually block the blessings. We pray for answers to our problems, but we actually close off our hearts to the move of God, usually out of fear and doubt. Then even when He is actually able to sneak a blessing in, we are so fearful that it is not going to really work or that something is going to happen to take it away that we discount it instead of embracing it.
What we need to do is pray and then expect God to answer that prayer. Believe He is going to hear you and show up on the scene. He does it all of the time. We just have to let Him in. Give Him room to express His love in your life, and then move out of His way. Don’t try to fix your own problems. You make it worse and interfere with God’s deliverance. Pray and get out of the way. Put that problem in His “inbox” and leave it there. He is capable, more capable than we are. Then you can send me the testimony of what a great God we have. I am looking forward to hearing the story.
2 Responses
Last Thursday I was in Raleigh, NC attending a line dance event for the weekend. After dancing a lot the first day I suddenly had severe pain in my left ankle like I have never felt before. A friend told me she had had ankle tendonitis and I might be having the same problem. We bandaged the ankle, and I did not dance at all Friday night. However, I did give it to God and asked Him to help me with my problem. Saturday my dancing was limited as things slowly were improving. Sunday was like there had been no problem at all. I kept telling my friends that God was sending me a miracle, and I kept thanking Him for His awesome blessing. My ankle is doing well now, but I still need to be careful with it. It took 3 weeks for my friend’s tendonitis to go away and I was dancing again in just a couple of days!!! We need to get into the habit of thanking Him for these small everyday miracles that are so often overlooked. Thank you, Lord Jesus!
Mike, congratulations on your healing! It is great to hear stories of God’s faithfulness.