Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: “Here am I….” Isaiah 58:9
“We have all learned to live with voice mail,” wrote someone, “as a necessary part of modern life. But you may have wondered, ‘What if God decided to install voice mail?’ Imagine praying and hearing this… ‘Thank you for calling My Father’s House. Please select one of the following options:
Press 1 for requests.
Press 2 for thanksgiving.
Press 3 for complaints.
Press 4 for all other inquiries.’
Or suppose you got that recording that said, ‘All our angels are busy helping others right now. Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line for the first available operator.’”
Nothing can be much more irritating to me than to call long distance—sometimes from overseas—urgently needing to talk to someone, and you get a recorded message which puts you on hold to the accompaniment of music recorded on a tape long worn out from overuse.
Thank God, that never, ever happens when you need God’s help. If there is one theme, voiced consistently down through the centuries by the men and women who wrote of their personal experience, it is that God is always there to meet you at the time of your need. Consider some of the following:
A millennium before Jesus was born, David, who often faced crisis, wrote, “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). The psalmist wrote, “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Psalm 145:18). Nahum, in the seventh century BC, wrote, “The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him” (Nahum 1:7,NKJV).
Isaiah, the gifted writer and confidant to the king, wrote, “Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: ‘Here am I’” (Isaiah 58:9). Jeremiah recorded the promise of God Himself as he wrote, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you” (Jeremiah 29:12).
Jesus’ coming changed the way people began to think about prayer and calling upon God for urgent help. When the disciples heard Jesus, they discovered that when He prayed, the words flowed out of His heart; and furthermore, He didn’t wait to pray until He found a cathedral with soft light filtering in through stained glass windows, nor wait until the Sabbath when He went to the synagogue.
He prayed anywhere and whenever there was a need—as He walked beside the shore of Galilee, when the disciples presented Him with the lunch of a little boy, when He was confronted with sickness and disease as He took control over it, when the raging hostile winds of nature threatened to sink the little boat they were in. No, the words were not memorized. They just flowed out of His heart.
There’s good news today. Since God has no voice mail, you will never hear a recorded response such as, “At the tone, please leave a message. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Meanwhile, may you be blessed and have a good day.”
No concern is too small and no need is so great that you cannot take it to the Lord in prayer. One of the last books which was written and included in the New Testament came from the pen of John, the one to whom Jesus entrusted His mother at the cross.
He wrote, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). And when we know that God has heard us, we can leave the rest to Him. Communication complete!
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