God Doesn’t Leave You On ‘Read’
Psalm 18: 16-19 (NIV)
‘He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.’
One of my biggest pet peeves is sending a message to someone and not receiving a speedy reply. There’s nothing worse than pouring your heart out by WhatsApp message and then being confronted with the dreaded blue ticks signalling someone has seen your message but never replied; leaving you to try and convince yourself that they’re busy or have dropped their phone down the toilet, in order to avoid the thought that they don’t care about your message or worse...have forgotten you completely. (Unfortunately, I have to admit my hypocrisy and tell you that I also miss the odd message, but for the purposes of a slick devotional analogy we’ll ignore that glaring fact!)
For too much of my life, I’ve often assumed that when we pray, cry out or pour our hearts out to God these messages get added to an almighty heavenly inbox and God chooses the most important ones to reply to and leaves the rest on ‘Read’. And although of course unanswered prayer is a reality in our relationship with God and a mystery that only he can explain, my frequent assumption that God is passive or uninterested in our needs and struggles is completely wrong.
In fact, in Psalm 18, David illustrates the immediacy in which God springs to action in response to our cries for help. According to David, God’s response to our calls involves making the earth ‘tremble’, ‘parting the heavens’ and ‘soaring on the wings of the wind’ in order to rescue us. This doesn’t exactly sound like the actions of a God who is passive, does it? Therefore, take heart in these verses when you call on the Lord. He is willing to split the heavens to reach you and comfort you, because he delights in you.
Prayer – Father God, thank you that you are not passive, uninterested or inactive. You love to answer our cries for help and were even willing to send your only Son to fight our ultimate battle. Help us never to forget the lengths you will go to display your love and devotion to us, in Jesus’ name.