Does God listen to me?

“My God, my God, why have your forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.”                                                                                                            Psalm 22:1-2

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I li                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Psalm 116:1-2

You are not the only one…

There is great comfort in those words. Sometimes what we really need to know is that we are not alone in our experience, that others have walked a similar journey or that we are not crazy or irresponsible or evil for thinking what we were thinking.

So you are not the only one…

…who has ever wondered whether God was really listening to you at all. And you are not evil or even crazy for wondering how and why the God who shaped everything would take our advice about anything.

I mean if God is sovereign why would anything I have to say really matter? Sure it might change my heart to pray but does it really change God’s mind? How could I presume to change God’s mind? And if God already has it all figured out anyway then isn’t everything already predetermined. Doesn’t He already have it all mapped out? Who am I to ask Him to change His plans?

All of this makes perfect, rational sense. The problem…

…there are far too many examples in the experiences of people and the teachings of Jesus when God not only hears but responds with action.

At one point Jesus’ followers ask Him to teach them how to pray.

(A side not here: one of the longings of my heart is to have the kind of conversation and relationship with God that compels people to ask about it. And I feel certain they were not impressed by His word choice. They were, after all, living in a time when religious people had a tendency to pray wordy/eloquent prayers. So much so that Jesus feels the need in his teaching to call them out. I am convinced that it was not the eloquence with which Jesus prayed but the sincerity and familiarity with which He prayed that intrigued those who listened.)

When they asked, Jesus first taught them some of the elements of what we now call the Lord’s Prayer (at least in Luke’s account). But then he goes on…

“Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’

And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.”

Many of Jesus’ parables leave us with as many questions as answers. This one is no different. But it’s important not to miss the obvious.

Jesus, at least in part, is painting a picture that claims bold prayers change what God intends to do. The man was in his house, in his bed. His intention was to stay in his house and in his bed. But the bold pleading of his friend outside the door changed his mind.

At base level Jesus is making plain that our prayers have the potential to change what God intends to do.

Does God listen to me?   Why would He listen to me?

Jesus’ teaching on prayer isn’t finished yet, according to Luke. He goes on to say…

Ask.

Seek.

Knock.

It will be given.

You will find.

The door will be opened.

And then He says that fathers don’t dole out snakes or scorpions or even stones when their children ask for food. They are motivated by love to give good gifts.

God, motivated by love, gives good gifts when his children ask. God does thing that are different than what He intended to do when He is asked boldly.

The parables may say other things as well, but it seems that they at least say those two things.

Now, that all sounds nice and neat until you pray boldly to a loving Father and nothing happens. Once again, you are not alone.

There are some things that God intends to do that He WILL NOT change his mind about. God’s ultimate desire seems clear. He WILL set the world right. He WILL make things right. And in our day He is making things right. All of humanity and history is headed somewhere. And God has showed His cards on this. The cross and resurrection and ascension makes clear that the ultimate will of God is for as many as possible to come home to Him. The parable of the prodigal son is a pivotal story.

Consider this…all things will be made right when all people come back to God in love and obedience. Think of what a different kind of world this would be if all people were in love with and listened to God. No more stealing or looting. No more hording or positioning. No more rioting or violence. No more…

This is the ultimate will of God. This is where all things are headed. We are NOT going to change God’s mind on that. But how we get there….   well, there are nuances to that.

It’s like working on a group project in school. The goal is to adequately fulfill the requirements of the assignment. But there are many ways to accomplish that goal. There are many directions that the group project could take. And most certainly the collaboration will take the project in directions that it never would have gone if any one of those involved had done it all by themselves. When we work together things go differently than when we work alone.

God has invited us to participate. We are co laborers and collaborators. We work together with the end goal in mind and He, as a loving Father, listens and responds to our input.

So this is where prayer begins to change our heart. We pray with the end goal in mind. Our prayers are aimed at accomplishing the will of God in the world. So we pray things like… Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

James writes, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

But when we pray with the same heartbeat of our Father, He is inclined to listen. When we pray with the end goal in mind our prayers take this project in ways that it might not have gone if God had been doing it all on His own. What a magnificent and humbling thought.

Even still, there continue to be moments when God simply says “no.” And this requires trust. He sees more than we do. We may be confident that our prayer is in line with the end goal but He may be able to see that what we are praying for is ultimately a dead end. So we pray boldly, to a Father who loves to give good gifts for the sake of accomplishing even greater things for our good and for His glory. And we trust in those moments when we pray boldly and nothing seems to happen. Even then, He is still listening. And He is still good.