By Shirley Rosemarie Evans
“Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.
Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.”
Psalm 5:3 NLT
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
I remember my grandson from being months old would wake up smiling and eager to engage with family members, and as his speech developed he would happily chatter away about his dreams or what his plans for the day would be.
True story, I spoke to my grandson this morning and he, in his delightful 6-year-old way, told me that his mother had ejected him from her room (yes, he used that word). Naturally, highly amused, I spoke to my daughter to hear more of this story. She said Ezekiel had come into the room at 6 am on a public holiday! Well, if I’m honest with her, on any day, 6 am is an early hour. His question at that time was “Mummy, how tall am I?” She was far from amused and quickly sent him back to bed. Needless to say, his lively chatter on the first thing in the morning was and apparently is still not always greeted with the kind of enthusiasm he would like.
Our God is an attentive listener all the time. In fact, scripture tells us that He doesn’t slumber or sleep and that He is available to His people 24 hours a day 365 (or 366) days a year. When I consider that the Creator of the universe, Almighty God, Sovereign ruler, is not only accessible and available but eagerly waiting to hear from me - I feel a stirring somewhere on the inside and a song of worship or a shout of praise comes to my lips.
I recall preparing to travel and needing to speak with the manager at a well-known airline. I called several times and was informed that a manager would call me back on more than one occasion, and, you guessed, I never received the call. But our God waits to hear from us. Psalms 116:2 tells us that He doesn’t just wait but that he bends down to listen. His delight is for His children to seek Him.
The scriptures say of God “My sheep know my voice,” and as much joy as we get from knowing His voice, the delight we have is that He also knows our voice. He hears the cries of His children and just like a mother will recognise the cry of her child distinct from every baby in the nursery, so our Father distinguishes our voices, and He bends His ear to our voice. He invites us to cast our cares on Him and to trust Him with our every concern and situation. He wants to be involved in every small detail of our day.
The good news continues. He does not just hear our voices, but He answers our prayers. David asks God to listen to His voice in the morning, and as in any conversation, he will wait expectantly for the answer. All too often as children of God, we rattle off routine prayers thanking God for keeping us through the night and asking Him to watch over us, our children etc. We rush through our prayers, but we don’t cultivate the habit of just waiting prayerfully to hear what God has to say. We do not expect that God will speak. But prayer is not just us talking but for God to speak to us, to reassure, to instruct, to counsel.
Yes, our God speaks!
Throughout the Bible, we see where God spoke to His people from Adam in the garden, to Moses in the burning bush, to Jesus with the disciples God speaks and He now has taken up residence in the heart of the people. We are the temples of the Living God filled with the Spirit of God and He still speaks, by His Spirit, through His word, He speaks. So, don’t just rush on, wait expectantly on Him, does a song burst from your heart that lifts your spirit, does a scripture come to you, do you feel the urging of the Spirit to act or refrain from acting, do you hear an audible voice?
Thank you, God, for bending your ear to hear us and for condescending to speak with us.
Ask: Why would David be so confident that God would speak to him?
Seek: When was the last time you waited expectantly in the presence of the Lord?
Knock:
Psalm 116:1,2
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!
Reflect on these verses and take time to thank God for bending His ear to listen to you.
(Upper Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash)
(Inner Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash)
