Does God care and hear me when I pray?

March 27, 2014: Does God care and hear me when I pray? Please SHARE this new Precious Prodigal Post: http://bit.ly/1g7BvWm

2 Kings 19:20 “That which thou hast prayed to me…I have heard.”

Yesterday I wrote that Hezekiah’s response to the threats from the Assyrian king was to take the problem immediately to the Lord instead of agonizing over it, complaining about it or intellectualizing it. His response is both a challenge and encouragement to me. And it was the first thing I noticed about his reaction to a desperate situation.

But can I pray with the confidence that God will hear my fumbling words and will work the situation out for my good and His glory? You bet I can, and I think that’s the second reason Hezekiah asked God to “see and to hear.” Hezekiah prayed that God would do something, and he was specific in his prayer, expecting that God would be specific in His answer. And he wasn’t disappointed.

Perhaps my faith and my memory are not as good as Hezekiah’s, or maybe my “forgetter” works overtime. Whatever the reason, I often forget the times God has met my needs in the past. To help me remember, I keep a prayer journal. The first pages list family and friends I pray for every single day. Then I have pages and pages of things I’ve prayed about. When I add something to the journal, I put a line with the date and then write the specific thing I am praying about. When God answers that prayer, whether with a yes or a no, I highlight it in yellow and put both the date and the answer. I can’t tell you how powerful it is to pray from that journal and see page after page of yellow highlights.

There are many Bible verses that assure us that God hears us when we pray. But one of my favorites is Jeremiah 29:12 where God says He will listen to us when we pray. One reason I love this verse is that it follows Jeremiah 29:11 where God reminds me that He has a plan for me and that His plan is not to harm me but to prosper me and give me “hope and a future.” Knowing that God loves me and has a plan for my life that is perfect gives me the confidence to pray with the conviction that His answer is going to be as perfect as His plan.

I’m not this super spiritual person who moves mountains with her prayers. I’m much more likely to trip over dust bunnies than to move mountains. Neither am I a person who spends five or six hours in prayer each morning. Without the discipline of morning devotions and my prayer journal, I would forget the devotions and likely forget what I’m supposed to be praying about.

I’d also like to tell you I’m the person who always wants God’s will and His timing more than I want my way. But that wouldn’t be true either. Some days I’m only capable of wanting to want God’s will. And on those days, that’s enough. I’m just a simple, broken child of the living God, who is learning that God’s plan is better than mine and trusting that a God who loves me will both hear and answer my prayers. And if He’ll do it for me, He will do it for you.

Challenge for Today: Can you, just for today, believe that God hears you when you pray and will answer you with the perfect answer in His time?