As I look back on my six decades of life I can see so many answers to prayer. Sometimes the answer to a prayer came quickly. Sometimes I prayed for years and years and years and then, finally, the answer came. There are some prayers I'm still praying but I've yet to see an answer. When I pray the same deep heart cry prayer for years, and even decades, without a visible answer, I'm ashamed to say that I sometimes lose focus on all of the answered prayers and begin to wonder if God is still listening to me.
This morning, during my devotions I read the portion of scripture in John chapter eleven when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Before He spoke the life-giving words, "Lazarus, come forth!" Jesus prayed to His Father. He thanked the Father for always hearing and listening to Him. He didn't say, "Father, please listen to me. I'm begging you to hear my prayers. This is a desperate situation. Lazarus has died. Please, please, please listen to me, hear my prayers, and help me to raise Lazarus from the dead." I'm pretty sure that's what my prayer would have sounded like under the circumstances. But, Jesus was confident in His relationship with the Father. He was confident in the Father's love for Him and that the Father's eyes were always on Him and His ears were always tuned to hear Him.
In John 17:23, Jesus is once again praying to His Father. Jesus says, "You have loved them, even as You have love Me." Did you get that? Jesus is saying that the Father loves us as much as He loves Jesus. In other words, we can be confident, like Jesus was, in our relationship with the Father. We can be confident in His love for us, that His eyes are always on us, and that His ears are always tuned to hear us. We don't have to beg God to listen to our heart cries. Instead, we can start our prayers with thanksgiving that our Father in heaven always hears and listens to us. Always. Praise be to God!
still following,
love this! I think it's difficult to realize and accept that God loves us as he does because we look at our inner selves as we look at a photograph of our outer selves. We are so critical it's hard to imagine that anyone could find us attractive or love us. But God loves us.
ReplyDeletePraise God that He does, indeed, love us so!
DeleteYou nailed it, Elizabeth. That's exactly how most of us would have sounded in a Lazarus circumstance. Thank you for pointing out that our Heavenly Father loves us as much as He loves Jesus. That fact alone should help us to pray with confidence.
ReplyDelete