Thursday 29 July 2010

Yet You hear our prayers

Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O LORD my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You today: that Your eyes may be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, 'My name shall be there,' that You may hear the prayer which Your servant makes toward this place. And may You hear the supplication of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear in heaven Your dwelling place; and when You hear, forgive. – 1 Kings 8v28-30

God is everywhere, He cannot be bound. Isaiah tells us that His name is Holy and that He lives in eternity. God knows everything. He can do anything. He is everywhere at once. He never changes. He created and sustained the universe and all that is in it.

To sum it up God is totally separate from man. He is not like us. We cannot even really totally understand Him because His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways and His thoughts are as far above our ways and our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth.

He is perfect, we are sinners.

Yet, God still regards the prayers of His people. That is amazing. It reminds me of the passage in Isaiah 57 where we read that God inhabits eternity, but He also dwells with those with a meek and humble spirit. Astounding. What an amazing God.

The passage following relates how no matter what, if God’s people will repent and turn back to Him, He will hear them. One verse even mentions ‘when we sin, for there is no man who does not sin,’ but then turns back to God He will listen to their prayers.

We can take prayer for granted if we are not careful. Might we pause for a moment to reflect on the amazing nature of prayer? How can a God who cannot be held by the ‘heaven of heavens’ still hear our prayers?

Because He is God. Praise Him that He hears my prayers.

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