Devotionals

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Hear my voice Lord when I call; have mercy on me and answer me.
Psalm 27:7

When we first recite this line, we may think we are asking God to listen to us. We might imagine that God may be too involved with other things, so we need to ask Him to listen. This is a natural thing to assume, since that’s the way it is with people we know. Usually, we have to ask to talk to them, to see if they are busy with someone else, or in the middle of a project. I don’t believe that is what the Psalmist is saying, here, however.

I believe the Psalm states this to assist us in opening ourselves to God. God is always there to listen; we don’t need to ask Him to hear us. However, we need to open ourselves to Him. I see this as saying “Hello,” to God before we talk, reflect, or meditate. I imagine opening up my arms wide, surrendering my feelings, thoughts and ideas, so that I might be filled with God’s presence.

When we come before God, we are spiritually, emotionally and intellectually naked. God sees everything. As we begin to surrender to Him, we realize how we want to be important and how our ego has ruled some of our actions. We realize that we may feel jealous or angry at someone and have acted on that feeling in a negative way. Once we admit this, we can come to God and say, “I am sorry.” Looking critically at ourselves is part of opening up to Him. Once we have opened up and look at ourselves without judgment, we can ask God for mercy.

It may sound like we are beating ourselves up when we do this, when in fact, it is the opposite. As I have stated earlier, we must look at the gifts God has given us and the love that is within us. We are called God’s beloved sons and daughters. Once we have that foundation, we can then look at ourselves openly and say, “Yes, I am God’s beloved child, and I am loved, but I am also human and have built-in challenges in my life.”

We are not perfect. As we look at ourselves, we see how badly we want to be important. How we forget that we need to make God number one in our lives, and not succumb to our own ego!
It is not easy to do this. When I suggest that we are not to judge ourselves when we do this, I am asking you to look honestly at your life, and not say, “I shouldn’t do that,” or “How stupid I am,” or any number of personal judgments and criticisms. I am asking you, instead, to look at your life and say, “Okay, I might want to get that promotion not only because I feel I could help people and use my gifts, but also because I would feel more important.” It might embarrass you to speak to God this way, but as your conversation with Him resonates, you may suddenly realize that being important isn’t much of as issue, anymore. We realize that, compared to who we truly are inside, the title of “supervisor” is nice, but it doesn’t make us any more important to God, or more loved by Him, which is what we all want, anyway.

I imagine Jesus smiling at us when we pray this way, because He is pleased that we are being honest and working on our personal challenges. The nice thing about doing this is that we become more understanding of others once we see what our own weaknesses. How can we possibly judge another, when we have the same weaknesses?
We can come to Jesus and say, “I am so sorry for not realizing who I am in your eyes and for looking for approval in the eyes of other people. I ask You to forgive me. I will try to remember that I get a new start each day. I know You give us another day to follow You.” Use whatever words work for you. This is merely a suggested prayer.

The last part of this scripture says, “and answer me.” That can be tricky. How do we know when, and if, God has answered us? We may pray for months and never sense that our prayers have been answered. We may even feel like God has not have heard our prayer. What I have found is that my prayer will be answered in some way, though I may only be aware of the answer in retrospect.
At night, I hand over my whole being to God. I allow Him to do with me whatever He wants. That way, I will be aware and open to His movement in my life, and I can respond. Since I have started praying this prayer, I have had many things happen where I have felt that I don’t have a clue what I am doing, yet I feel strongly that I am being guided by God. Each day is an adventure, and I never know how it will end. I only know that I trust Jesus. So, has Jesus answered my prayer? I believe He has!

Sometimes, His answer may not be something we want or understand. That is when keeping the faith can be difficult. If we find ourselves in situations like that, sometimes it helps to have a spiritual advisor. Such advisors can be found at retreat houses, churches and other places. I could write a whole book on spiritual advisors and what they do. Consult with your pastor at church or a retreat house for more information, if you are interested in learning more.

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