Psalm 66:19 But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
The God of the universe hears my prayers. A simple woman with worries of bills and children and healing, but He lets me take His time, every time, for as much time as it takes. I pour out my grief, my heartache, my past, and my anger and the absolute wonder of it is that He hears me.
An everyday miracle that in it’s simple power changes Every Thing.
Because He doesn’t just hear me, He attends to my voice. To the inner cry that I may not even be able to articulate. He’s not just interested in hearing my words–he’s interested in attending to me. Haven’t we all felt the sweet relief of just being heard? Of a God who seems to stop the world for a moment because our pain asks it of Him? Our relationships, our fears, our trials–they all matter because, by hearing them, He draws us closer to Him. He’s after the closeness because we’re all so very dear to Him.
The heart of God takes all my anger and pain, the whole mess of things, and holds it in His heart until it is redeemed. That’s part of the power of prayer because the listening and the hearing and the attending are the very first steps to the healing.
When we listen to the pain of another person we get to try on the heart of God. The heart He really gave us– the one that doesn’t shame because it’s looking for abundance and relationship and redemption. The most powerful love ever shown to me has been found in the open ear of another. Empathy is not a luxury–it’s as essential as the air we breathe and when the oxygen gets sucked out of our lungs we claw to try and get it back.
God, let me listen just a little more like you do today.
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