Season 1, Episode 10
God Hears Us
Have you ever been talking to somebody and felt like they were totally not listening to you? You were talking right through them? They weren't paying attention at all. I'll tell you from early in our relationship, I knew that my now wife was a talker. She always has been. Actually, after our very first phone call, the first thing I told my brother, About Molly was that, "Man, she talks a lot." Even now after our three years of marriage. She still talks a lot. One of the recurring arguments that we have is that she'll tell me something and I will have no recollection at all of that conversation. It happens pretty often, and no matter how closely I try to pay attention, it pretty often feels like I miss whatever key detail was there. And I'm pretty sure she's watching me listen and knows for a fact that I'm not all there, I'm not all paying attention.
And we all face this kind of thing from people all the time. It's a known thing that whenever you're talking to somebody, it's very likely that the other person is thinking of a response. They're not truly listening to what you have to say. And we do the same thing. We all do it to each other. We're terrible listeners. We are a society of just awful listeners. Yet we all crave being listened to. We want our ideas heard. We wanna feel like what we say is really important to people.
As I share that this last promise of God that we're gonna talk about in this season. I wanna tell you, this one is one of my favorites, and there's a story in here that I believe if you truly listen to it, it'll change the way you look at prayer.
Do Our Prayers Matter to God?
There's a very simple verse in Micah 7:7, it says, "My God will hear me now." There are so many scriptures that point to the idea that God is listening to us, that he hears the cry of his people. But unfortunately, even throughout my life, there have been many times where it feels like the enemy has convinced me that my prayers are not being listened to, that they're bouncing off the ceiling and they're not getting anywhere. Or even worse, he convinces me that my prayers don't matter so much that I shouldn't pray at all. I shouldn't even try it. I promise you, it does matter that you pray because God is listening and it matters to him that you're talking to him.
Have you ever heard the question of how can God hear every prayer all at once? Maybe you've phrased it yourself and you've asked if you're in an arena of 5,000 people, and the pastor says, for everybody to pray and all at one time, everybody does. How does God hear all those prayers? I had some difficulty with this question a while back and ended up stumbling on an answer.
In his book, Mere Christianity, by CS Lewis, he gives an incredible example. And I'm not going to quote it because I wanna share it just a little bit differently, but this idea as a whole is from him. And so I want you to imagine with me that CS Lewis is sitting down at his desk writing a novel. I found out recently that the c s Lewis refused to use a typewriter. So he would sit there and he would dip his ink pen in a bottle of ink and he would go and he would write out all the incredible stories that we know. So I want you to imagine that he's sitting at his desk and he is, he's taking his ink pen and he's dipping it in the ink, and he's writing out a story.
He's writing about the life of this woman named Mary, but he is writing that Mary is sitting on her couch drinking coffee out of a mug. She's sitting there like any normal day, just relaxing and enjoying her morning. And out of nowhere she hears a knock at the door. She takes her mug and she stands up and she walks over to the door. She takes a sip of her coffee, and as she reaches her hand out, she opens the door and out of nowhere she's startled and her coffee cup begins to fall out of her hand. It tips over and the coffee's beginningto drip on the ground. Before the coffee cup hits the ground, CS Lewis stops writing.
He sets his pen down on the table and he stands up from his desk. He stands up and he walks around and maybe he goes to get a coffee himself and he goes to run an errand. Three or four hours later, he goes back to the desk and he picks up that same pen. He dips it in the ink and he writes out: "The cup, fell to the ground and shattered into a hundred pieces."
What was just a matter of moments for Mary ended up being hours for Lewis. How does that make any sense? It's because CS Lewis was outside of Mary's time. So what was Moments for Mary was hours for Lewis because he was outside of her story. He was writing it. He was the author and so he could stand up anytime he wanted to take a break and come back to it and the time would not change for Mary because he was outside of the time of the story.
CS Lewis explains that this is not a perfect illustration by any means, but it helps us to understand God's relationship to our time. He says, and I quote, "God is not hurried along in the time stream of this universe any more than an author has hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel." This is the important part here. He says, "He has infinite attention, to spare for each one of us. You are as much alone with him as if you were the only being he had ever created."
What an incredible thought. Because God is outside of our understanding of time. He stops everything to have a conversation with you. I just imagine the world is going crazy and he's seeing like this bird's eye view of news and everything popping up. And whenever you come to him and you said, "Dear heavenly Father." God stops everything in the universe and he listens, he tunes his ear to you. He stops all of time to sit there to have a conversation with you.
How Does that Change the Way You Pray?
So I wanna ask you, how does that change the way that you pray, the way that you look at prayer and your quiet time with God? God stops everything to talk to you. He is literally waiting in anticipation for you to turn and talk to Him, just to have a conversation. And when you do, he stops everything and you are His only focus in that moment. When you sacrifice time with God, He is 100% in that moment with you, and so if you have had any question that God is listening to, I hope that clears it up for you because God is listening. He's right there with you.
Charles Spurgeon said about God listening to us. He said, "Because God is a living God, he can hear. Because he is a loving God, he will hear. Because he is our covenant God, he has bound himself to hear us."
But why does all this really matter? It matters because it means your prayers matter. It means that every time that you pray, no matter what you're praying for, no matter what you're praying about, your prayers matter, they matter to God. They matter enough that he'll stop everything he is doing to talk to you. Where my wife gets frustrated because I'm focused on everything else and don't give her 100% of my attention whenever she talks. That is exactly what you get whenever you pray.
Have you ever jokingly asked the question, if you could ask God any one thing, what would you ask? You realize we have that opportunity every single day. God has his ear turned towards you. He's cleared his schedule. He sat down at the other side of the table to meet with you. And so often in my life, I go through difficulties and challenges, and I forget that God is right there hoping to talk with me about it.
All this reminds me of the verse in Revelation chapter three, "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to eat with him and he with me."
God is standing at the door right now saying, I will listen. I will hear you. I will answer your prayers, and all we have to do is open the door and be with them. So when the world looks hopeless, remember that God hears you, he's listening. You claim that promise. Whenever the enemy tells you that God's not listening. When your prayers feel like they're bouncing off the ceiling, remember that story of CS Lewis because I promise you, God is listening.
Now, this is the last episode of this season. I want to thank you so much for listening and being a part of it. I truly hope it has blessed you, it has helped you in your walk with God. I hope we can hear from you and that's not just a promo. We would love to hear from you and your thoughts about this season and possibly answer some questions that you have so you'll be hearing from us again very soon.
