ReaD Psalm 116:1-4
“Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath! How kind the Lord is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours!” (Psalm 116:2, 5 NLT)
After spending five years as a missionary in a large communist country in East Asia, I felt God telling me it was time to head to Bible school. I enrolled in a year of study at a Christian college in Vancouver, Canada. On my first day of class I discovered that this same large communist country sent a handful of graduate students to this school every fall semester (this was a miracle in itself!). These students were all good atheists, but they happily engaged with everything on offer at the school, and responded warmly to my invitation to meet regularly for informal Bible study. Near the end of their time in Canada, we reflected back on all they had learned about God in the past few months.
One student asked the excellent question, “What good is it to be a Christian if you still suffer the same as everyone else? Christians still get cancer, they still have broken relationships, they still fall and break their legs…” After a few moments of silence, another student responded: “I think the difference is that for Christians, they know God is with them in their suffering; they are not alone. That’s what we see in the Cross.”
That’s exactly what we see in today’s reading as well. I love the NLT version here, where we see God actually bending down to listen to our prayers. Imagine for a moment what this really means. The Creator of the universe, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, bends down close to you, to me. He hears our whispered, anguished prayers, and He ministers to us in ways that our hearts can understand, even if our outward circumstances don’t change. It is because of His nearness that we can rejoice with the praise expressed in verse five, at how good and merciful this God of ours is.
And of course, we see the ultimate nearness of God in the Cross. Just as that student said, we may still suffer the same kinds of misfortunes and difficulties as non-Christians, but we see in the Cross that God suffers with us, and we know that ultimately, the whole cosmos—including us—will be well.
For Reflection:
- In your prayer time today, picture Jesus coming near to you, bending down to listen to your prayers. Then spend some time praising God for His kindness, goodness, and mercy.
By Christina Winrich
