Abundance of the Heart - God Is a Good Listener

“Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” (Matthew 6:8 NKJV)

I am thankful that God knows what I need even before I ask, but that leads me to wonder, “If God knows what I need before I ask, then why ask at all?” God is good. He’ll give me what I need. Besides, Paul says that “we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:26 NKJV)

We don’t want to bore God with things he already knows, but we run no risk of doing that. Even though God knows everything we need, he likes to hear us talk. In John 17, Jesus prayed the obvious: The hour has come. God gave Jesus authority over all flesh. Eternal life is to know God and Jesus. Jesus had glory with the Father before the world was. Jesus had shown God’s name to men. Etc, etc., etc.

The point being that Jesus said nothing that the Father didn’t already know. And the Father didn’t seem to mind. Jesus needed the therapy of talk and the Father wanted to listen. One can get the impression that the Father likes to hear us talk, and that is part of the therapy of prayer.

The lesson of praying what God already knows devolves into a lesson of life that goes beyond prayer and settles uncomfortably in our living rooms. Sometimes I am tempted with boredom out of my mind when my daughter wants to talk about kid things. I really don’t want to put down the book or turn off O’Reilly, who is talking about the really big issues rocking the world (which I can do nothing about), to hear about the latest playground problem. And I really don’t want to take a break from writing this essay when my wife decides it is time to talk about cleaning up my desk before company comes over.
But then I must ask myself: What does our Heavenly Father do when I talk to him about the obvious? He would put down the book, put the universe on cruise control, lean forward, and listen. Because God likes to hear us talk, and he is the best listener there is.

Lenny C.

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