Does God ever stop listening?
How many of us have ever asked this question? Probably more than we want to admit, but think about it… does the God of the universe ever stop listening to us? After all… doesn’t sin damage the relationship between us and our Father? As we continue to sin, over and over again, does it ever get to the point with our Father when He draws the line, takes the posture that enough is enough, and turns His back on us?
The focus of Psalm 139 is that God has perfect knowledge of us, and all our thoughts and actions are open before him. God sees, hears and knows everything—including our prayers. Nothing escapes His attention. However, it is possible to sabotage our own prayers with such things as expectation, attitude, and actions through sin, disobedience, hypocrisy, insincerity, lack of faith, and wrong motives. Additionally, our timing is certainly not God’s timing… what may appear to be silence may actually be a delayed response. Other times, God may deny our prayer request because in His perfect knowledge, He is preparing us for something far bigger and better than we knew to ask for. And lastly… attitude. In a recent NPR broadcast of Around the Nation, the interviewee was quoted as saying that “an effective apology involves a delicate balance between tact, tone and timing.” I can tell you that more often than not, I get the tone piece completely wrong! I’ve been called on this a number of times hearing “it’s not what you said, but how you said it.” Perhaps it’s the same with our Lord… He knows our heart… perhaps, when we come to Him, we should be working a bit more on how we’re coming across than trying to figure out how to get ourselves out of trouble! And really… who are we kidding… do we really think we can win in a debate with our Lord and Savior?? Certainly God takes notice of those who persist in refusing to walk in His ways (2 Kings 21:19-26; Hebrew 3).
In the following video clip, I believe that God is much more receptive to the man after 1:57 minutes into the movie clip than the individual at the beginning of the clip… can you tell why? What do you notice about the tone of the main character’s message?
Finally, we need to be glorifying God in all things (1 Corinthians 10:31), not just when things go well. Recently I shared with a family member just how well my daughter was doing after her heart procedure. The response was “Thank God!”, and rightly so… He chose to save my baby! But I wonder what the response have been if God made the decision to take my daughter during her procedure… would the response have been the same?
So when it appears that God has turned His back on us, I believe He is faithful and is always there… He certainly knows everything about us, but we need to work at strengthening the relationship if it is to survive. But just as it takes spending regular time alone with an individual to get to know them, time with God is critical! Without faith, we are bound to rely on ourselves and not the One who knows us better.
I’ve heard it said that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. Until a few years ago, I would have said I believe that. No more… I believe that God give us MORE than we can handle… if He didn’t, why would we need Him?
Until next time… peace!
Greg (gstefanelli)
Sixty-six books in a year 