Is Anybody Listening?

Proverbs 28:9 If one turns away his ear from hearing the law,
even his prayer is an abomination.

God is showing me something in a large way. No one listens anymore. It is a battle that I face as well. Think through how many times you have to repeat simple instructions, and how many times you get frustrated with people not listening to you and chances are, you will have much to recount. I think there are many reasons why no one is listening. As a general rule, our society is a tired, distracted, multi tasking society that has very short attention and commitment spans. Perhaps the bigger problem is that we don't see the need to listen to others as most of us think we have it all figured out. When you combine all of that with the false belief that we are not under authority you have a perfect mix of "no need to hear-ism".

Imagine for a second how God feels. Read the proverb above and think through the point that the proverb is trying to make. At the time the proverb was made, the law was the only written revelation from God to His creation (that would be people). He says if you ignore God's word, then even your prayer is an abomination. Whoa! Read it again. If you are ignoring God, then your prayers to Him are wickedness.

That kind of seems a little cold hearted at first glance, until you think it through. The major point is this: God has incurred much pain and sacrifice including His Son Jesus, the other heroes of the faith in the bible, and the heroes of the Faith that have risked their lives to preserve the word as evil men tried to destroy it and them. The Bible you have might have only cost you 15 bucks, but it has cost God a lot of grief. It cost many men their lives. It is therefore not a cheap read that should collect dust while we read "more entertaining and relevant things". What could be more entertaining and relevant than the God of the universe communicating with you?

Analytically, you should ask yourself why would God go through all of that so that the bible is available to me? The answer is so that we are able to get glimpses of the Greatness of God and the intense Love displayed in the Gospel, and choose to walk away from the enticements of a sinful world, and follow Him. We must realize that if we are not being changed by Him, then our prayers are prayers that are not in line with His will, but our own. When we pray for God to do our will, we are in effect attempting to "Tell God what He should do". It should work the other way, don't you think? God should be telling us what to do.

Well he has done that. Are you reading and listening?