The Listener to Our Prayers

How often when you pray are you aware of Him to whom you speak?  Does prayer sometimes feel like handing your grocery list to the invisible grocer?  Or mailing your Christmas list to the North Pole?  Or crying up to a cement ceiling?  What, or Who, are you talking to? 

Perhaps this is where the Psalms are helpful.  David and the other Psalmists rely heavily on their remembrances to keep them from falling in times of trouble.  They remember what God has done in their lives and in the life of Israel, and they think of Him as they offer, sometimes pour out, their petitions. 

As early in the Psalms as chapter 3, we see David naming this God.  Though he is torn up inside because of his many foes, yet he remembers that God is a shield about him, God is his glory and the One Who lifts his head.  He is listening, and answering, from His holy hill.  He could lay down and sleep, knowing that the Lord God was going to sustain him. 

Really?  As his foes rise up against him?  When was the last time you were able to sleep when you were in such turmoil? 

When we pray, we speak to a God who is there.  A God who sees and hears.  Surely we can remember the deeds He has done, and the wonders He has performed.  Certainly, if David could name this Listener in his petitions, we can be a bit more focused in ours.  We can lift our eyes off our prayer lists and look at the One Who listens to us, Who receives our lists.

Speak to this One.  Be still and listen back to Him.  Be filled with wonder that He wants you.  Be enamored of His love and care.  Even Hagar called Him “the God who sees”.  He sees and He is listening and He has a plan.  You’ll see it someday.  In the meantime, wait and wonder at His love.