Praise to the Great Listener

The pastor speaks. Verses and interpretations - engaging, cerebral, meat. I chew and digest. I pick apart. I play with my food. It's all very good, though that part's a little tough, and that last comment was a little undercooked, for my taste. But on the whole it's all very satisfying, very filling. But then comes desert.

A true story, from a true life, lived and recounted by a true believer. The anecdote presented like a wedding cake, beautiful, ornate. The ideas within are refined like sugar, presented as experiential fact, easily digested. He had a struggle, no he had a question or a request, but maybe a struggle. He wanted something from God. So he dropped to his knees one afternoon and he prayed, and tears came into his eyes as he spoke to God, and he asked and pleaded and hoped... and had faith. And then - this is the frosting on the cake, this is the part that sends an excited shiver up my back when I hear it on a Sunday morning - God answered.

He answered with an emphatic and practical "YES" as requests were granted and struggles were overcome like Nintendo games, with smiles. He answered with events that had been set in motion years ago, perhaps decades. His voice echoed from distant cities and long forgotten months. His handprint in the concrete past is inscribed with, "All you had to do was ask."

But that's not all. He answered, and that means something. That means He heard. That means that the God who formed the heavens, the God whose voice begot galaxies, He who parted waters and sent plagues and protected Daniel from the carnivores, this God whose wisdom defies our greatest libraries and whose power is only dimly reflected in lightning and hurricanes and solar flares, this mighty, majestic, self-existent God bent His great ear to one like us, and He heard him.

He heard one like us! This God stooped to listen to the ignorant questioning of a human being! The mighty general allowed an ex-traitor into camp to ask for provisions. The exhausted teacher saw the hand of that self-absorbed, spoiled kid shoot up, and she called on him, and listened patiently. The wounded father wrapped his arms around his rebellious son and, after eight years of his treachery, when the son begged for forgiveness and more, told him, "All you had to do was ask." The Holy God of the universe, who watches meteor showers in unknown galaxies and knows black holes in the far reaches of space, who can count the atoms in the rose petals lying in the garden, who inspires poets and philosophers and musicians to concoct praises for Him, this God looked down upon our miniscule little planet, at one member of our absurd species as it kneeled near an open window in a box made of wood and drywall, and He listened. He heard, and He listened, and He answered.
Praise be to God.
And when we call out to Him, He will hear, He will listen, and He will answer.
Praise be to God.