The sacrifice of the wicked is destestable to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is his delight. Proverbs 15:8
God has created us to be conversational people, but even the most conversational of us have our limit. For example, many of us have friends or family members who seem to always be looking for a handout. What do we do when we see them coming? We avoid them as much as we can because we’re tired of being hounded.
What about in the home? We love our kids and want to talk to them, but there’s a threshold, isn’t there? I like movies, but I’ve mentioned before that I have trouble suspending disbelief. It’s always annoying when movies unrealistically depict families in which the parents hang on their children’s every word 24/7. Come on. Those of us in the real world know better. By the time 8 or 9 o’clock rolls around, it’s time for the 12-hour quiet game. Sometimes that quiet game needs to happen much, much earlier. That’s reality.
What about at work? The guy in the next cubicle who’s convinced you care about his dog’s new puppies. And the weird sound the right side of his dashboard is making. And his grandmother-in-law’s hip. So he updates you in detail every day while you’re desperately trying to meet deadlines.
We don’t have the capacity to listen all the time. We get annoyed. Some of that is sinfulness; some of it may just be fatigue and circumstance.
But what a tragedy when we imagine that God is just like us. I’m afraid that some of us are reluctant to approach God with “small” prayers and “long” prayers and the “same old” prayers because we think He’s like us, annoyed by all the noise.
“I don’t want to bother the Lord with such a small thing.” Doesn’t Peter encourage us to cast all our cares on the Lord because He cares for us? (1 Pet 5:7)
“I don’t want to take up so much of His time.” The Psalmist says that “the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him” (Psa 103:17). An eternal God is never crunched for time.
“I’ve prayed for the same thing so many times; He’s probably sick of hearing it.” Isn’t that precisely what Jesus encouraged us to do in Luke 18:1-8? “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart…”
The fact is that God is nothing like us. He’s quite clear about this (Psa 50:21). And consider this: …the prayer of the upright is his delight (Pro 15:8b).
Unlike all the situations in which we are resistant to listening to others, God regards our approach with a genuine, “oh, good. Good.” He is a perfectly, unceasingly loving and welcoming Father. He delights to listen to us.
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