“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12, 13
Does it ever seem like God’s not listening? You pray, but the prayers seem to hit the ceiling and bounce right back down. There seems to be no connection. Or maybe it even seems like God’s left the building. Not only is He not listening, He’s not even there. You have a huge obstacle in your life, or a problem you don’t know how to tackle, or you’re completely worn down by the difficulties of life. You cry out to God. In fact, you cry over and over and still you’re met with complete silence. The kind of silence that is deafening. Where is God? Why doesn’t He answer? Why does He leave you to struggle alone against an army of difficulty?
I want to make something very clear right away. God is always with us. There’s a fancy word for it – omnipresent. That just means that He’s everywhere all the time. So it’s impossible for God to not be present. He’s here with me and He’s there with you. All the time. Another thing I want to make clear is that God always hears our prayers. In fact, He goes beyond that. He knows our prayers even before we do. Here’s another fancy word – omniscient. That means that God knows everything. So He knows what we’re going to pray before we pray. He also knows how He’s going to answer that prayer.
Here’s another fancy word – omnipotent. It means that God has all power. Knowing that can actually be frustrating for me. Since He has the power to answer my prayer, then why doesn’t He?! Because of His omniscience. He knows what’s best. I don’t. Oh, I think I do. I think that if only this happened, or that didn’t happen, things would be perfect. But God, who knows everything, has a better answer.
So far I’ve been approaching this verses from a human perspective. But take a look again at these verses. I’ve been talking about God answering our cries. That’s certainly part of these verses. But where do these verses say that God will give you what you asked? They don’t. God does answer our cries, but at the right time and in the right way. But most of all, God gives us Himself. If we are truly seeking, He’s not going to hide. When you’re omnipresent, it’s pretty hard to play hide-n-seek. Besides, he doesn’t want to hide from us. He wants to be known by us. So why does it feel like He’s not there? Maybe it’s because we’re just not seeing Him. Our problems have so overwhelmed us that we can’t see anything beyond them. We’re choosing to see the difficulties of life instead of pushing them aside just enough to see a glimpse of God. But if we set our hearts on God, we’ll see His presence become bigger and bigger as our problems become smaller and smaller.
How do we set our hearts on God? The word says we should seek Him with our whole heart. Does that even seem possible? No? That’s okay. Remember, God understands. He knows everything. See that tiny little glimmer of God in your life? Grab onto it! Hold on tight! You’ll soon see that little glimpse become bigger and bigger. Keep looking. Keep seeking. As your vision of Him becomes larger, you’ll find that more and more of your heart is filled with Him. It will be a filling so glorious and wonderful that the problems and difficulties pale in comparison. They may or may not still be present. But your view of God will become so big that they no longer matter. Only He will matter. What an amazing day that will be!