Does The Lord Hear My Cries?

Have there been times in your prayer life, when you feel like you're unable to put into words what you're feeling? or that your lack of appropriate language will jeopardize you prayers? I often wonder whether God really hears me. I often get really frustrated and then discouraged because I think that God won't hear me if I can't put my anxieties, feelings, or thoughts into words correctly. I foolishly believe that God's faithfulness to hear my prayers is contingent on me having adequate words. This bit of scripture and quote from theologian A.W. Pink returned to my attention and greatly encouraged me. We Christians come to a heavenly father who truly cares for us, communication will never be a problem with God. He knows, he hears, and will care for us.

"It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24)

There is no cause for fearing that the petitions of the righteous will not be heard, or that their sighs and tears shall escape the notice of God, since he knows the thoughts and intents of the hearts. There is no danger of the individual saint being overlooked amidst the multitude of supplicants who daily and hourly present their various petitions, for an infinite mind is as capable as paying the same attention to millions as if only one individual were seeking its attention. So too the lack of appropriate language, the inability to give expression to the deepest longing of the soul, will not jeopardize our prayers ("The Attributes of God")

Happy New Year!

In a matter of hours we will be celebrating the beginning of a new year. I am looking forward to celebrating with some good friends. Reading through tweets and posts, I see a lot of people hoping 2011 will be better than 2010. For some there's been heartache and losses. I have had my share of junk, but I have also remembered good. I have seen and rejoice in God's faithfulness in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I remember that while I've had a lot of failures this past year, God's faithfulness has remained and I have not frustrated his plans for me. His love for me all through the past year never shifted. So with the new year about to come in I pray this prayer for us all:

Heavenly Father, as I sit quietly before you on the eve of a New Year, I’ve got a healthy case of sad and glad going on inside of me. As I reflect over the past year, both of these emotions dance about, more like allies than enemies… for both are evidence the gospel is at work.

The glad? The highlights and headlines of the past twelve months compel me join the Psalmist, in praising you for your love and your faithfulness. Abba, as with each of your children, you loved me all year long with an everlasting, engaged, unwavering love…irrespective of anything I did or didn’t do. You didn’t love me more when I acted like your beloved child. You didn’t love me less when I acted like an orphaned fool.

You loved me every moment just as much as you love your Son, Jesus, for you’ve hidden my life in his. Thank you, for your steadfast love and fresh mercies that came every single day this past year… when I was aware of them and when I wasn’t. Great is your faithfulness. Concerning my life, you did everything this past year that pleases you. Not one of your plans devised for me was foiled or failed. This makes me very glad.

The sad? It’s precisely because you love your children so irrepressibly that I also feel grief in my breast. There were more than a few times this past year when I joined the nations in saying, “So where is your God?” You usually heard this complaint from me when you were busying doing what pleases you, and not what pleases me. When I wanted a butler you remained God. When I wanted a masseur you remained Master. Those were the times I began to look to my voiceless, sightless, senseless, powerless idols more than I trusted you. I own and grieve my foolishness.

Father, here’s where the gladness trumps the sadness. I will not always be a man in two minds with a divided heart. You will bring to completion the good gospel-work you’ve begun in each of your children. One Day we’ll no longer even be tempted to worship anything or anyone but you. Hasten that glad and glorious Day.

Until that Day, even on the eve of a New Year, prepare us for the next twelve new months of groaning and growing in grace. Bring much glory to yourself, as the gospel does its work in and though our lives. So very Amen, we pray, in Jesus’ faithful name.

(scotty smith)

The Proper Fear of God

When you think of fear of the lord, what comes to your mind? The past couple of days I've noticed an unhealthy fear, one that is antithetical to that desired in scripture. When I start to think about the future and how I really want this to happen or that to work out, I get fearful and think "I shouldn't think about this, God will probably do something with my life that'll wreck me and I'll just be frustrated". I find I've got this view of God that portrays him as the giant anvil that hits the Wiley Coyote. I'm terrified when or how the anvil is gonna hit me. So my feeling is that I've got to bury these thoughts, plans, desires or God is gonna go all Tasmanian devil on me (I apologize for the loony toon references, for some reason I can't get em out of my head).

Do you feel this way? That sinking suspicion that God is gonna do something and its gonna be bad? I've been convicted that this is unbelief in who God says he is and it is not the fear of the lord desired in scripture. Granted, we should be afraid of God but that is not dominant element. We need to remember that as Christians we serve a God who promises to deny us NO GOOD THING. He proved that by giving up his son for us. I'm seeing that legitimate fear of the lord is the fear that sees God in all his holiness and majesty and us in our creatureliness and total sinfulness and then the fact that the very same God, gave his perfect son to suffer his just wrath so that you and me could be reconciled and made children of God. We should not be afraid of God in the sense that we are afraid of what he will do, this is fear couched in unbelief. In fact, we don't need to fear judgment because Christ experienced the full load. Let's remember that we do not come to a cruel divine ogre who crushes us and our desires cause we don't measure up. We come to a heavenly father who delights in his children. And when we feel the painful rod of his discipline, it's only meant to protect us from the deceitfulness of the idols that grab for our attention. If he denies us certain things, it's only because he has something better. Sinclair Ferguson describes legit fear of the Lord as:

"The indefinable mixture of reverence, fear, pleasure, joy and awe which fills our hearts when we realize who God is and what he has done"

If you are a Christian you can come to God with those desires, but please surrender them. I need to, I need to believe he is for me. We should not be afraid because we serve a God who takes pleasure in doing good to his children.

"I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul."(Jeremiah 32:41)

Cultivating proper fear of the Lord involves thinking hard about who he is and what he has done. This same God who spoke creation into being, who wiped out nations, and abhors sin, crushed the apple of his eye, in order to wipe you and me clean and bring us to him to enjoy forever, righteous in Christ. Deep reflection of the cross and it's implications should evoke the fear that glorifies him and fuels our striving for godliness. Today rest in the fact that God is for you, he wants you to enjoy him and trust he has your good at heart.