Monday, March 7, 2016

Is God Angry With Me“O God, listen to my prayer.  Don’t ignore my prayer.  Pay attention to me; answer me.  I’m worried, and I’m upset over what the enemy says and how the evil people stare at me.  They bring down trouble on me.  They hate me; they are angry.  I have great anxiety.  The terrors of death have attacked me.  I’m scared; I’m shaking.  I am overwhelmed with horror.  I thought: ‘I wish I had wings like a dove.  Then I would fly away and rest.”  (Psalm 55:1-6 IEB).

Have you ever felt your prayers traveled no higher than the ceiling?  Did you think God wasn’t interested in you or your problems?  He wasn’t paying any attention?  He had more important things to do?  Did you beat yourself up because you were worried, scared, and wished you could do something about it yourself because apparently God wasn’t going to?

“I’m innocent, yet they are ready to attack me.  Wake up to help me and see what’s happening!  You are Yahweh, the God of the armies of heaven, the God of Israel.  Get up and punish all those foreigners!  Don’t show those traitors any mercy.”  (Psalm 59:4-5 EB).

Have you ever prayed earnestly, pleadingly, and in desperation because your world was collapsing around you?  When your prayers went unanswered and heaven seemed to be oppressively silent, did it remind you of Elijah telling the prophets of Baal to shout louder to wake up their god (1 Kings 18:27)?  Did you think that Yahweh might also be asleep?  Isn’t that David’s prayer?

“I call to You from the ends of the earth.  I am afraid!  Take me away to a rock that is high above me.”  (Psalm 61:2 IEB).

Have you ever had someone to tell you, “If you have fear, it means you don’t trust the Lord”?  Apparently that saint had not spent much time in the Psalms!

“O God, save me, because the water has risen up to my neck.  I am sinking deep into the mud, and there is nothing to stand on.  I am in deep water, and the waves are about to drown me.  I’m tired of calling out for help.  My throat is sore.  My eyes are strained from looking for my God.” (Psalm 69:1-3 IEB).

Does praying fatigue you?  If you have experienced David’s emotions, did you feel you were close to blaspheming the Holy Spirit?  Did you think you were unworthy due to those feelings?  Did the thought plague you that God’s silence meant you were too sinful to receive His answer?  Did it cross your mind that God’s reply was “No, No, No.  Never!”?

Yes, David had those same feelings.  He cried out in desperation as you have.  He was met with silence in the same way.  Did that mean God hesitated to reply to either you or David because your sins made you worthless and not suitable for His help?   No!!  A thousand times “NO!”  David was a sinner.  You and I are sinners.  Yet, in spite of David’s fears, worry, fatigue in praying, and doubts that God would answer, here is what inspiration says about him.

“Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”  (1 Kings 15:5 KJV).

“God . . . raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.”  (Acts 13:21-22 KJV).

Notice, in both passages nothing is said about David’s fears, anxiety, fatigue in praying, or accusing God of being asleep.  If not David, then you neither!  God hears you as he heard David.  Will he answer?  Will he deliver?  It may not be according to your “wants” or on your timetable, but He will reply.  David needed character building and God provided.  David needed patience and God provided.  David need to learn to depend upon God, and Yahweh provided.  Your needs and mine may be different from David’s, but God will provide.