Eventually we all have a time when we will plead with the Lord. It may be for the health of a child or spouse. It may be for the Lord to provide before your house is repossessed. It may be that you have lost your job and you desperately need a new one. We have lost our security, those things which hold us up, that give us purpose. We dread losing someone or something we love. We have nowhere else to turn so we cry out to the Lord.
Does He know our pain? Is He listening at all? These questions run through our minds if we let them. Somehow we think we shouldn't think this way but the thoughts linger. We are so afraid that by questioning God He won't help us through our distress.
My dad got my children a go-cart when they were eight, six and four. It was a two seater so the older two got in. My oldest daughter drove around and around the yard at full speed while my middle daughter hung on. My youngest wanted desperately to join her older sisters. She ran close to the path where they were going. I ran, grabbed her and yelled, "Suzanne, stay out of their way!" I sat her down out of harm's way and continued to watch my other daughters tear up my parents' yard.
Suzanne stayed by herself and didn't move from where I had left her. I looked over and she was silently crying. Tears were running down her face very quietly. It tore out my heart. She was so hurt that she couldn't join her sisters. She was deprived of that moment. I had scolded her for trying.
I thought about that moment for such a long time. (Suzanne will be twenty-six in a couple of months.) I can't imagine what God's heart is like when His children are in pain if my heart is torn out when my own children are in pain. I wanted to make it better for my daughter but I wasn't willing to let her get in the path of the speeding go-cart. Yet, I still really hurt for her.
God certainly hears us and knows our desperate moments. He hurts when we hurt. His answer will not come if our desire will hurt us. That makes very little sense to us when we have something we truly need. It seems like He should provide it for us without delay.
God is in the middle of every desperate moment. He has either caused that moment or He has allowed it. His omniscience will not allow Him to ignore any of His creation. His love will compel Him to answer every desperate plea. His power will enable Him to do so.
Yet, sometimes we wait in what appears to be a cold dark room. We cry, we beg, we try to bargain or blackmail God and, sometimes, we curse. Eventually our cry comes to, "Where are You, God?!" Maybe its the silence that really gets to us.
And God answers.
(Maybe you need to send this blog to someone who has a desperate need. God will answer. They may already know that but hearing it again can't hurt.)
Psalm 147:3 (NIV)
3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
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