HEARTLIGHT(R) Magazine: Special Feature: Where is God?

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I felt abandoned. On my knees for the thousandth time, did God hear me? Perhaps I didn't have enough faith. Perhaps I wasn't praying with the right attitude. Was there unconfessed sin in my life? Trapped in a cycle of self-examination and self-recrimination, I spiraled downward until I thought I would crash land.
Then a nearly forgotten incident filtered into my thoughts. I remembered the time, many years earlier, my eight-year-old son and I walked across the mall parking lot when, at the top of his little lungs, Nathan screamed, “Daddy, Daddy, can you hold this box?” The elderly couple several yards ahead of us turned to see what all the commotion was about. I’m convinced half the customers in the mall had stopped to stare in our direction.
Embarrassed to a fault, I growled in my best can’t-you-see-I’m-standing- right-next-to-you voice, “What are you shouting for?”
Undaunted by—and more likely oblivious to—my chagrin, Nathan’s eyes sparkled with childlike composure. “I wanted to make sure you could hear me,” he said.
Zing, right through the heart. In my walk with God across life’s parking lots, how often have I acted as my eight year old, wondering: Does He hear me? No wonder I become anxious when nothing happens. No wonder I wring my hands, convinced He is not listening.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,” The Lord gently chides through Isaiah. “Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15-16, NASB). And again Scripture reminds, “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22,23).
Yes, He listens. As a wonderful, loving Father, He listens. Before our words are even spoken, He knows our very thoughts (Psalm 139:4).
As His child through faith in His Son, I don’t need to shout aloud, as if He is on vacation in some distant part of the Universe. I don’t need to pray with an anxious heart, as if He is too caught up with the affairs of our world to give heed to my needs.
Delays do not necessarily mean denials.
He hears me. He hears each of His children. He hears our deepest cry whispered in the furthest recesses of our hearts. Such confidence is a great anchor for the soul.