Devotions with Pastor Blake Owings

Is God Really Listening?
 
Do you ever wonder if God is really listening to your prayers? Do you ever find yourself crying out to God when life is painful, and feeling like you aren’t getting a response? It can be difficult and frustrating to know for sure especially since we can’t physically see or hear God. Maybe the problem isn’t that God isn’t listening, maybe the problem is that we really aren’t listening to God. Maybe the way we think about prayer needs to change.

We often use prayer as a megaphone. When you use a megaphone, you are typically making an announcement or yelling out instructions. You are telling someone what to do, and not inviting them into a conversation. Sometimes we pray like this. We tell God what we want Him to do. We keep it short and generic, keep our true selves out of it, and don’t give Him time to speak back to us.

Instead, we should view prayer like wearing headphones. When we wear headphones, we tune out the world and focus in on the thing we are listening to. It becomes personal. Our prayers need to focus in on God. To discover what he has to say to us. Only then do we realize that he does the same with us. He is really listening to our prayers.

The next time you are wondering if God is really listening to your prayers, ask yourself. “I am really listening to God?”
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Pastor Blake