"He Listens"
I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath! (Psalm 116:1, 2 NLT)
A common reason many people mention for a lack of prayer, or prayer that is frustrating, is they don't feel like their prayers go beyond the ceiling. This makes some sense because we are praying to a God we cannot see & who does not audibly respond back. How do we know our prayers are being heard much less answered?
This is why many people do not pray. The uncertainty seems to outweigh the certainty. Prayer seems to create more questions than it answers. It seems to create more mystery than it clears up. It can even create more despair than relief.
All of these perceptions are what we think about prayer apart from the Word of God. If just left to our individual experience, I would say that prayer is all of those things above. And even with the perspective of the Word it can still be work & frustrating.
But Psalm 116 gives us great hope & motivation for prayer. "I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy." God hears! What great hope this gives us! Before we even think about answers, it's worth praying just because we know he hears. God hears the prayers of his children. He listens. He cares. He knows where we are & what we are going through. He bends his ear to listen to our heart's cry.
So no matter what's going on or what we are facing, we can be assured that he hears. What are we waiting for? Pray!
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