Devotionals

In Our Time Of Need

by Stephen Wong
07/22/20
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“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”     Hebrews 4:16 NIV

In primary school, our classes were sometimes chaotic, with thirty loud and distracted children packed into the one room. During classwork, the teacher would sometimes get us to write our names down in a list on the whiteboard whenever we had a question, while she would frantically rush around the classroom trying to attend to each of us in turn. I was sometimes afraid to write my name down. Although I had questions, I knew my teacher was really busy. I didn’t want to bother them with something that was potentially not that important.

On the other hand, God is never too busy to hear our needs. There is nothing that we cannot take to him in prayer. The Bible tells us that we can always have confidence in approaching him. Why do we have this confidence? It is because of Jesus Christ who has become our high priest (Hebrews 4:15). He is a high priest who experienced temptation in the same way as us and who understands all of our needs. Jesus shared in our humanity and died for our sins (Hebrews 2:17). Now he is raised to life and seated at God’s very right hand, giving us the confidence to approach God’s throne (Hebrews 1:3). Through faith in Jesus, we can know that God will always hear us whenever we bring our cares to him in prayer. 

Yet, we often have a tendency to only approach God in prayer when we have “big” problems, rather than take every matter to him. Perhaps we are tempted to think that God is too important to care about the smaller matters in our lives. Perhaps in our pride, we think we can manage most of our problems without God’s help. We believe we only need to turn to him when we are really struggling.

Whatever the reason, we should remember that God cares about every aspect of our lives, even the things that are seemingly insignificant. He cares when we feel stressed that we are running late for our appointment again. He cares when the kids are driving us crazy. He cares when we feel grumpy that it’s so early in the morning. He cares when we can’t find our wallet. In fact, the Bible tells us that God cares about us so much that he even knows the number of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7). Like a trusted friend, God wants us to bring all our worries and troubles to him. He is always there to listen. So whatever cares we have, whether big or small, let us continue to lift them up to God each day with confidence, knowing that we will “receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Reflection Questions:

Q1. Think about your prayers over the past week. Do your prayers reflect a dependence on God for all of your daily cares? If not, why?

Q2. Over the next week, how can you make more of a habit to deliberately lift your daily cares to God in prayer (even the small cares)?

Lord God,

I praise you for your infinite grace and mercy. I thank you that through Jesus Christ as my high priest, I can be confident that you always hear me whenever I pray. I acknowledge that I need your mercy and grace for every day of my life. Please teach me to continually lift all my cares, both big and small, up to you in faith. In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen