I love the Lord because he hears
my requests for mercy.
I’ll call out to him as long as I live,
because he listens closely to me.
I love God because he does stuff for me? That was my first thought upon reading the first lines of this Psalm today. So, if God stops doing stuff for me, I stop loving him? That’s not right.
Then I read it again.
I love God because he listens to me. Yes. That is certainly right up there in my list of reasons to love God. Not that all my prayers are answered in the way I want them to be, because they are not. Simply that God listens - hears the desires of my heart and the hungers of my soul.
There are plenty of people who see God as Santa Claus, and stop believing when they don’t get everything they ask for. Some stop loving God if something terrible happens in their lives. I did not love God for decades, because my understanding of God was flawed. I only knew about the judgmental, punishing God. I had no idea that God loved me, and I certainly didn’t know that God listened to me.
God listens closely to me.
God listens so closely that I am provided with things I didn’t know I wanted. Very often some event or person will come into my life and I realize that this is something/someone I really needed. This is something/someone I desired deep in my soul but didn’t know to ask for. In some cases, it has been something I absolutely did NOT want, but which turned out to be a blessing.
I will call out to God as long as I live, because he listens closely to me.
Merciful God, thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to the silent prayers of my heart, to my pleas for things I don’t even know that I need. Amen.
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