Have you ever felt as though God didn’t hear your prayer? You know, like maybe He’s deaf? Sure you have. We all have at one time or another. But, trust me – God’s not deaf! He hears every cry and sees every tear. Then why so much suffering in the world you ask? There are two reasons that make sense to me, and the Psalmist understood them.
One – Because of our freedom, there are those in the world who are selfish, arrogant, and wicked who say, “There is no God” (V 4). In their greed they take advantage of the needy and oppress the helpless. All the while, the world asks, “Why God”. “How long O Lord?”
Two – As humans we fail to think of eternity. We see only our own time. If we languish year after year, we wonder why God doesn’t come and make things right. We think that somehow the world should be fair. But, the world isn’t fair, and God never promised us it would be. What he did promise is that in the end all wrongs will be righted. In the end, He will make the Lord’s enemies a footstool for His feet, and the last enemy to be conquered will be death (Ps. 110 & 1 Cor. 15).
The truth is God’s not deaf. God does care. The Psalmist knew that a day would come when there would be victory for the downtrodden and oppressed. That day is now. By the cross, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the enemy has been defeated, though evil is still loose to wage war for a time, until the day Christ steps back into this world to usher in eternity. When that Day of Lord comes, all wrongs will be righted, and all things will be fair.
There is no promise for God’s people that we will not suffer. In fact, it’s just the opposite. St. Paul tells us we are heirs with Christ, if we suffer with Him (Rom. 8:17). But, like the Psalmist, we too can live in hope, knowing that God is with us, that He does see and hear.
14Thou dost see; yea, thou dost note trouble and vexation, that thou mayest take it into thy hands; the hapless commits himself to thee; thou hast been the helper of the fatherless.
We know God hears, yet it may be that it still seem He doesn’t. The Prophet Isaiah teaches us to not just look at the whole world and blame all the wrong we see, but to examine our own lives as well. Perhaps our own sins have hidden us from God’s presence.
1Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
2but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear. (Isa. 59:1,2)
Praying the Psalms teaches us to think in eternal ways; they teach us how to understand the temporal ways of the world. They also lead us to repentance so that we know there is no separation between us and Him. Stay with me as we journey together and allow the Psalms to lead us in life; they always lead us to God.
Shalom,
Pastor Brad
image credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/361695413796771330/