#DailyDevotion When It Looks Like God Has Not Heard Our Prayers Or Listened To Them
Psalm 22 24For He did not despise or abhor the Sufferer’s suffering, nor hide His face from Him. But when He called to Him for help, He listened to Him.”
The psalm begins to take a turn for the better at this point. The Sufferer is of course Jesus. “He” here is God the Father. While it looked to the world like the Father despised and abhorred Jesus’ suffering. nothing could have been further from the truth. True, during the suffering of Jesus, Jesus was abhorred by the Father because the sin of the world was on Him. Yet the Father was pleased to see Jesus undergoing suffering because that suffering was the salvation of the world.
The Father did not hide His face forever when Jesus called to Him in this prayer from the cross. The Father indeed listened to Him and helped Him. But it sure didn’t look like it from the ground. From the ground, it looked like Jesus was rejected by God. It looked like God did not hear Jesus’ cries for mercy. Indeed we will not see that the Father listened and heard Jesus till Easter morning when the Father raised Jesus from the dead.
This is a good lesson for you who are suffering or loving someone in Christ who is suffering. You must look to Jesus to see how your prayer in faith is being answered. It may feel and look like God is angry with you, not listening to you, and not answering your prayers. But know, as you continually put your faith in Jesus, the answer to your prayers may have to wait until the resurrection. Then you will know what God has done, see His plan in suffering and how it all worked out for the best.
25For You I give thanks in the great congregation; I do what I vowed before those who fear Him. 26Let the humble eat and be satisfied, and those who go to the LORD for help praise Him – may you live forever!
Jesus gives thanks to God Our Father in the great congregation of all the saints, all who put their trust in Him and before all the heavenly hosts as He ascends to the right hand of the Father. He has accomplished what He vowed to do before we who fear the LORD. He accomplished our salvation, our redemption, our ransom, and our atonement.
We then are humble before Jesus, knowing we could not save ourselves by our own works and efforts. Those who are humble and acknowledge them, Jesus invites to His table to partake His body and blood and be satisfied. Here, in this eating, we receive forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of our faith so we may endure the crosses laid upon us. We go to the LORD Jesus Christ for help and praise Him for He gives us the help that we truly need. We who put our faith in Jesus’ work on the cross will live forever with Him as we possess eternal life even now.
Almighty and merciful God and Father, we give You thanks and praise for the salvation You have worked through Your Son Jesus Christ. Grant us faith to trust in His work so we may be strengthened by it as we too, who follow Him, bear the cross You have laid on us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.