Because He Hears Us
We can transform noise to praise...
This Sunday, my church sang that song, “The Goodness of God.”
I love you, Lord,
for your mercy never fails me…
Even as the song filled my ears, I thought of all the things that had filled the ears of our church members this week.
A crying baby kept more than one woman up during the night.
The rhythmic beat of a basketball accompanied the children to gym class, and a drumbeat welcomed them to the game.
The wail of a grieving mother met one man as he arrived home.
A coughing child prevented a grandma from going to work.
The remorseful cry of a murderer echoed in the ears of first responders.
Twittering birds marked a hopeful anticipation of Spring on the way.
A ringing phone was silenced by a man at a prayer service.
We heard joy. We heard sickness. We heard sorrow and grief. We heard shame and regret. We heard courage and fear. We heard obscenities. We heard information. We heard despair.
“And they sang a new song,” John wrote in his book of Revelation. “They were singing a new song before the throne.”
Though our ears are full of sounds from the world, when we gather to worship God, he speaks clearly in His still, small voice, despite the noise. We can hear Him and know His goodness despite the echoes of the terrible things we have heard. We might not have been able to bring healing or relief to the suffering, but we know Who will.
And no matter what we have heard, He hears us.
John wrote, “If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.”
God heard all of those same sounds that filled our ears this week, but He also heard our whispered, shouted, persistent, desperate prayers.
In every one of the above situations, a Christian was present who has been saved and transformed by Jesus. We were able to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep because He has poured His love into our hearts and enabled us to love our neighbors as ourselves. He has shown us His goodness in order that we might share it.
Because He hears us, we can be instruments He uses to change the noise of the world into new songs of praise for His glory.
These are the times when the Lord puts new songs in our hearts. There was a time I did not know the song we sang on Sunday, but now, I know it. I worship the Lord by it. There are songs that I will sing in heaven that I do not yet know, but I am tuning my heart to be able to sing them there.
For now, we continue singing:
From the moment that I wake up
Until I lay my head,
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.