The God Who Hears~Friday

Sitting at a retreat I didn’t particularly want to go to, I held my journal furiously scrawling notes.  

Exhausted and tired of going around the same bushes, dealing with the same broken relationships, the same loneliness no matter who I was around, the same anger issues, the same hormone problems, the same depression, the same plain exhaustion, and thousands of the same prayers , I had little hope that anything would change.  

I had resigned myself to the fact that some of these things would just be part of my life. I had seen God do amazing things. He had taken us through the birth of our stillborn daughter, many different church splits and hurts, health issues, financial issues, and marriage bumps.We had been amazed at His provision and healing in all of these places, but that internal chaos that only I saw and fought just would not go away.  It was the internal wilderness I lived in alone and no one could get to—not even my husband, though he tried. It was my isolated place. I, like Hagar, was in a bad spot internally. BUT GOD HEARD.  

At that retreat I was scrawling furiously because the speaker asked, “What would your life look like if you were truly free?” Dare I go there? Dare I hope? I did a little bit. I wrote. I wrote that loneliness wouldn’t be a constant struggle. My little glass box that I lived in would be gone. On and on I wrote what I believed I could look like internally if the things that were choking the life out of me would just let go. At the bottom of the page I wrote, “Help me.”  I shut that journal and stuffed it in my purse. The Hearing God heard. That squeak of two words written at the bottom of that journal page sent God running toward me, although as I would find out, He was never far off.
​
That little page in that journal set in motion a series of events that when I looked back a year later, I could trace God’s movement in my life. He used so many, many things to show me that He does indeed hear and see—things He spoke to my heart, healing things people said unknowingly, verses that came alive, a beautiful picture that a stranger from church drew for me that had statements of who I am to Him, or books I happened upon that brought much freedom.It was a process of Him freeing, me seeing, and Him freeing some more. Looking back, I cannot believe what He has done.

It has forever changed me and changed forever how I see Him. He is not longer just God, but The God Who Hears. That internal desert I was in was the very thing He used to show me His heart for me. Friend, if you find yourself in the desert, the same God Who heard Hagar still hears today. Maybe all you can really say right now is, Help.  That is enough.   He heard the weak cry of Ishmael in the desert, and He can hear yours.

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. (2 Peter 1:3)

Father,
Thank You that You hear me when I call. There is not a wilderness in my life or a situation where You will leave me stranded. Help me to trust You even in the hard places.  Thank You that You love me and that You are fighting for me and for my freedom. I will look to You for help.   wait confidently for You to save me and you will certainly hear me (Micah 7:7).

Author:  Wendy Gerdes

---