How do you know that God hears you? I mean, really hears you?
We fear for the vulnerable in our world. We ask that they be protected. The numbers of those infected grow. Does God hear us?
We worry about our jobs. Will we keep them or be laid off? The next round of cuts is just ahead. Does God hear us?
We’re weary – more than weary – from homeschooling and corralling bored kids and now we stare ahead at summer without some of the normal beloved activities. How will we find the energy to parent well? Does God hear us?
Over my lifetime, I can count on one hand the number of occasions when God specifically and personally revealed that he does, indeed, listen to my cries.
- My Hannah-like pleas for a child that were answered after nearly five years through adoption.
- My late-night prayer coverage of a teen who was tardy for curfew but who did eventually arrive home.
- Communal prayers for a ministry’s financial need breaking forth into praise when the day’s mail arrived with a generous check.
- And a begging howl that God would return me across international miles to my husband’s side during a health ordeal when indeed, I arrived and he survived.
In each moment, I sensed God coming near to reassure me that yes, he was listening to my prayers. And not just listening but also, responding.
Despite these faith-bolstering memories, in much of my everyday I can still feel unheard as I murmur and struggle and yes, occasionally even whine. I’m pretty sure you can struggle here too? Maybe especially right now in the midst of our world’s crisis and this new normal that nobody wanted? What is God allowing? Where has he gone? Does he still hear us?
When God’s silence descends, I turn beyond his evidences in my days and review how he has heard his people over generations in Scripture.
Etched across millennium are myriad instances of God’s ear bending to listen:
- to Hannah’s prayers for a child (I Samuel 1:11)
- to Israel’s groans under slavery (Exodus 2:24)
- to Moses on Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 9:19)
- to Joshua at Gilgal (Joshua 10:14)
- to David crying out for deliverance from Saul (2 Samuel 22:7)
And onward into the New Testament where God became the spoken Word, Jesus, who walked this earth – and listened in the flesh (John 1:14). Today God’s Spirit hears the groans of all of creation as we wait for our ultimate union with Him (Romans 8:26-27).
In 1 John 5:14 we read, “If we ask anything according to his name, he hears us.” The word for “hears” is Akouo and it means to pay attention and to respond on the basis of having heard.
Yes, God hears.
At the crescendo of God’s hearing presence for you and me is the reality that God hears her. Over and over in the Old Testament, God hears and responds to the needs of named and unnamed women: of Sarah, Hannah, Rachel and Leah to bear children, of Deborah for wisdom, of Esther for courage and of Rahab for faith. Jesus hears woman after woman, offering ever-lasting water to a foreign woman at a well, restoring a demon-possessed son to his grief-stricken mother, receiving the spilled out offering of Mary of Bethany, turning to appear in the flesh before Mary Magdalene’s broken heart in the first resurrection moment.
But we forget. We assume God hears everyone but us. We worry that we’re too insignificant to turn his ear. That our needs don’t concern him. That he’s off working on other things and has forgotten about us.
Not. Never!
God hears. God hears her. And because God hears and God hears her, you can know that God hears you.
This is the passion behind a new podcast that I’m co-hosting with my heart-friend, Eryn Eddy produced by Our Daily Bread Ministries. God Hears Her is a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God notices you. God sees you, he hears you, he loves you because you are his. Will you join us?
