"Blah – blah-blah-blah-blah-blah" ...The disconnect is inevitable.
The way we view God's care for us is many times much the same. We seem to qualify or disqualify God's care for us by filtering His response through our self-disappointment and self-devaluation. This has us abandoning hope in God while we try to measure our loss of worth as a reason that He hasn't or won't hear our voice. Why should He care for us?
Holding to the false opinion, that God will only answer our prayers because we are “somebody” or have "done something worthy" of His care, is extremely detrimental to our total well-being. If the truth shall set us free, then there is a good chance a lie will ensnare and enslave us. Why are there so many “Christians” on drugs for depression and drugs to manage undiagnosed pain?
Sure there are a lot of reasons for medicating ...physiological, psychological, sociological, but could looking too long at our problems and looking too little to the One who can solve them be KEY. Do we remain in prayer? Do pray to prevail? Or do we pray because we get tired of hearing people say “Did you you pray about it”? If we would be honest, we plan and worry in larger chunks of time than we do in waiting on our God in prayer.
The likelihood of our even beginning to see the miracle of God's forgiveness and continual care for us, while we continue to stand and stare into a sordid sinful event in our life, is close to "nil". And until we back away from our sin, stop being the judgmental spectator of our hearts, and truly focus our concerns in His direction ... “nil” will keep recurring.
Someone close to me has written a song entitled “My Pain, My Healing” – The bridge of the Song reads :
“Longing for shelter- from the cold-you give me strength when I’m not bold -
If pain is healing - I want more - I’m still here kneeling - please restore.”
There is a truth in these lyrics possibly hidden even from the song writer just as it was from David in Psalm 66 (and to the casual reader of the words of this Psalm contain a healing treasure that may be missed). If David stopped at verse 18 like a lot of us do – “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:” … we may not catch what he really has said. We may not hear that what he has said is this – “If I continue to stand and stare as spectator and judge of the discrepancies of my heart, I may be silent and there is a good possibility that the Lord will not hear me speak from my need, because I am so overwhelmed by my discrepancy it may seem louder than my prayer)”.
You may even hear the Psalmist say … “I have sinned, God won't hear me”.
The sad thing is this may create an addictive loop, and we may continue to choose sin because we feel He doesn't care ... but He does, please read on!
Right now there is someone still punishing themselves by disagreeing with the interpretation of verse 18. Without knowing it, you have stared way too long at your problem, and think it has gotten bigger than God's provision to rescue. Read the passage in its entirety and trust the discovery of the Psalmist.
Psalm 66: 18-20.
“If I regard (by staring too long at) iniquity in my heart, (there is a potenial) the Lord will not hear (from) me:
but verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.”
God, in His love, grace and mercy extended to His Kids, Hears and Attends to the voice of our prayers... no matter how faint, how tainted, how small, how long, how seemingly insignificant, how embittered, how broken… God doesn't turn away from your prayer and never turns away His mercy from you.
Trust – Pray – Rest – Breathe,
HLFA,
Jeff