Is Anybody Listening?

Psalm 130:2 –

Lord, hear my voice!
Let thy ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications

For the writer of Psalm 130 life was the pits. Yet even on his deepest distress, whether by instinct or by habit, he does not just cry out – he cries out to God.

I write this just after hearing of a 12 year old girl who wandered from her parents' cottage in the Laurentians and was lost for two days and nights in the bush before being rescued. Imagine her experience: the gradual realization that you have totally lost your sense of direction, the feeling of complete disorientation. Then the repeated cries for help, all of which go unanswered. Then the dawning of the fact that no matter how long and how loud you shout there is no one there who is going to hear you or come to your aid.

The writer of Psalm 130 cries out to God to hear, but in this case there is a difference, for there is the conviction that no matter how far we have wandered from God, how completely disoriented we are, how deep we have sunk, there is someone who is ready to hear our cries for help and come to our aid.

If the psalmist realized this, we who know God's love in Christ can be even more certain that "neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). Whatever our situation is, when we cry out to God we are never crying out to an empty and uncaring universe; we are crying to the One who is indeed the hearer and the answerer of prayer.

Prayer: Lord, sometimes we are tempted to wonder if anybody is listening to us. Give us, we pray, the confidence to turn to you when we need help, knowing that you are indeed always listening and always attentive to the voice of our supplications. Amen.