Did He Hear Me?

Jun 22 2022 - Eric Buresh

I love to pray! It is such a privilege and honor to boldly go before the throne of God – a privilege bought and paid for by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. But, good grief, I didn’t understand prayer for such a long time in my faith walk. Looking back over the years, I am befuddled, but not surprised, at the immature, arrogant, and ignorant way I used to view prayer.

It’s funny how God paints little pictures in our human perspectives that can help us understand His perspectives if we pay attention. While I was growing up in my relationship with God, my kids were growing up in their relationships with me. When my boys were young, they used to run into a room and loudly make demands, “I want some Lucky Charms.” “I want you to put [brother] in his room.” “I need a new bike.” “I need a new video game.” Whatever. Being honest, I rarely listened to any of their demands. Most of the time, I just flat out ignored them and told them what they were going to do next. They had no idea what they needed or what was good for them. They had immature minds and almost no perspective on what they really wanted or needed or, more precisely, what would be good for them.

As the boys have grown older, they’ve also grown up. Now, it is not uncommon for them to come to me and say, “Here’s my situation, here’s what I’m feeling about it, what do you think would be best?” Now, I am really hearing them. After we talk through the situation, I give them my perspective on what is best. They’ve learned not to brashly demand their own will.

My prayer life has evolved in much the same way. In my immaturity, I was pretty sure I knew what was best on a whole host of life issues both for myself and others I cared about. My prayers demanded what I wanted, or what I thought was best. I sought my way earnestly. Sometimes my demands were “answered.” Sometimes they weren’t, or as I have often heard, God was just delaying His answer. When that happened, I figured something was wrong with my prayer. So, I tried a lot of different things. I prayed with Psalms wrapped around my demands. I prayed with tears. I prayed in a closet. I prayed at set times. I turned on music and prayed in spiritual songs. I was always experimenting at different times and in different ways to find what form of prayer would “work.” I didn’t have any confidence at all that God was listening to my requests. I didn’t have any confidence that He would answer. I hoped, but it certainly wasn’t a confident hope.

The Holy Spirit brought me to the realization that the fundamental problem in my prayer life was that I wasn’t submitting to God’s will. My prayers were always seeking what I wanted. I recall praying fervently for a business deal that I thought would be a “game changer” for my business. I pulled out all the prayer stops – all the techniques. And then I watched as the deal went to my competitor. I was devastated. Why didn’t God answer my prayer?!? And then I watched a little longer as that business deal fell totally apart for my competitor and would have been terrible for my business if I had gotten my demand. I recall watching a vacation that I thought I really needed fall apart and praying angrily that God would change circumstances so I could go. He didn’t change the circumstances, the vacation was canceled, and right where I was God gave me the gift of presenting the gospel to a person that so needed to hear it. He had better plans. It was slowly dawning on me that I didn’t ever know what was really best. I couldn’t see the future or the big picture. So, why in the world was I calling on God to perform my totally uninformed will? Why would He respond any differently to such ignorant demands than I did by ignoring the demands of my boys?

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “out of the mouth of babes.” One night, I was in a terrible situation along with a close friend of mine. We were really in a mess, and he and I were gathered around my kitchen table with my wife, and we were all trying to pray for help. One of my boys stuck his head down the stairs to see what was the matter, listened for a few moments, and then marched into the kitchen and asked if he could pray. He said, and I’ll always remember this, “God, please do what’s best for daddy and [his friend]. Amen.” God immediately poured out peace on all of us, and He did in fact do what was best for us, and it wasn’t anything we would have ever thought to ask.

The next day, I was searching the Scriptures trying to find an objective truth that explained the experience from the night before. My eyes fixed on 1 John 5:14-15:

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

YES!! We can be 100% confident that He hears us and 100% confident that we will get everything we ask of God. God is totally for us and spares no good thing for His children. So, we just ask Him to do for us the absolute best thing – whatever that is according to His will. No preconditions. Total trust. Total surrender. When we pray in this posture, God guarantees He hears, and He guarantees we will have the very best thing as we asked. This is crazy confidence!

A few weeks back, I had a rough bout of lower back pain. Having learned these lessons (at least most of the time), here was my prayer, “God, I’m hurting. I want it to stop, and I’m telling you that’s what I’m feeling. I also know you may have a greater good for me. So, I ask you to do what’s best for me. I trust you. Amen.” If He heals me, I’m hugely thankful for that care. If He doesn’t, I’m 100% confident He has a greater good for me and that the suffering is not meaningless. He is working for me “an eternal glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). Either way, He has given me exactly what I have asked of Him just like John said He would. He heard me. And I am satisfied with His good choices for me. This, brothers and sisters, is powerful praying!