One of my favorite parts of church is teaching Sunday School. Someone gave us Betty Luken’s flannel graph material. Our kids love the huge, colorful pictures.
Amazingly, my chronological teaching brought me to the Christmas story at Christmas! I was so excited by this! I taught about the angel appearing to Zacharias and something struck me I’d never noticed before.
The angel said “…your prayer is heard and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear a son…” (Luke 1:13, paraphrase mine 😉 )
Zacharias and Elizabeth were old, too old to have children. How long must they have prayed for children? Through their entire childbearing years? They’d probably stopped praying for a child since Elizabeth was beyond that stage in her life. They thought it was too late and that God had chosen not to give them children.
All those years, all those prayers, all the sorrow and rejection and hurt they must have felt. The feeling that God wasn’t listening to them at all.
BUT GOD had heard them and He’d chosen to answer them when they thought they were too old.
The Psalmist reached that point in his prayer life, too.
Psalm 13: 1—4
How long wilt though forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
So often, here on the mission field, we’re confronted by overwhelming needs, needs that are beyond our power to meet. We pray about them. Sometimes, many times even, it feels like God isn’t listening.
It’s easy to feel like the psalmist:
- forgotten
- ignored
- sorrowful
- depressed
- defeated
BUT…
Has God forgotten us? Is He hearing our prayer? Is He waiting to answer until just the right moment — like in Zacharias’ case, when God wanted to do something impossible because He’s God and He can?
I’ve read Psalm 13 so many times, yet the other day when I read it, the words jumped out at me. The Psalmist was expressing exactly how I was feeling that day. Then I reached the end of the psalm:
But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.
Psalm 13: 5—6
What do you do when you feel like God isn’t listening?
You make a tiny shift in focus from yourself to God.
You remember God’s blessings, the times He listened and answered.
When has God ever failed you? I can’t think of a time He’s ever failed me. I can’t think of a need that He left unanswered. I look back at times He made me wait and see His gracious timing, his bountiful goodness.
Instead of looking at what He hasn’t done (yet!), you remember what He has done.
Then you thank Him for it.
And wait to see what He has planned in answer to the need you’re facing right then.
