My God will hear me (Micah 7:7).
Five small words — but they teach several crucial lessons. As Micah determines to look to the one true God as his only hope and sufficiency, waiting on his perfect timing and perfect answers, he confidently asserts: “my God will hear me.”
Having learned the bitter lesson that one cannot always trust even one’s friends (Micah 7:5) and that a person’s enemies can even come from among his or her own family members (Micah 7:6), Micah nonetheless reflects an unshaken conviction in the goodness and mercy of God. We do well to contemplate the clear implications of Micah’s simple statement of faith.
My God Will Hear Me
Leonard Ravenhill, a 20th century Englishman well known for his studies of Christian revivals, observes in his book Why Revival Tarries that “to be much for God, we must be much with God.” We cannot hope to make a difference for God if we are not ourselves in intimate communion with God.
There is no substitute in Christianity for Christ, and there is no way to spend time with Christ without spending time in prayer.
It is no accident that Micah refers to the one true God as “my God.” It is clear that, as Micah determines to look to the Lord and present his needs to God in prayer, he is not speaking of, or to, a strange, unknown God. This God is his God. This God is “the God of my salvation” Micah says, in whom I trust because we have a history together already—life-transforming, obstacle-overcoming, relationship-forming, love-inspiring history—and so I know my God will hear me because he is my God, not just some metaphysical theory or religious icon or comforting ideal.
There is no substitute in Christianity for Christ, and there is no way to spend time with Christ without spending time in prayer.
Similarly, the prophet Isaiah testifies: “God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2). Can you say this? Is God your salvation?
This is not an academic question, with an intellectual answer — if God is your salvation then he is saving you! Is God delivering you right now? Can you think of a recent instance in which you were rescued or liberated by God? When you think about God, is it with a distant, vague memory of a past relationship or feeling? Too often God is just part of a past profession, rather than a present, palpable, passionate reality in our life.
But the confidence with which Micah is able to speak flows from an evident closeness to, and communion with—not his parent’s God, or his pastor’s God, or his spouse’s God—but his God.
My God Will Hear Me
The language of Micah’s statement is impregnated with both expectation and with patience, with confidence and with endurance. While he affirms his trust in God, the whole movement of Micah 7:7 is toward the future: “I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” I will look, I will wait … and God will hear.
Micah uses the future tense, not because he is planning to put off his prayerful pursuit of God, but because he clearly anticipates that God’s answers and deliverance will not be instantaneous. While he is even now planting his hopes firmly in his God, he knows that this God is not man-made, man-directed, or man-dependent. He works on his own perfect, wise, and sovereign timetable.
Micah apparently understood the principle that Jeremiah lays out in Lamentations: “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:25-26). One of the most challenging services we perform for the Lord is waiting on the Lord. And yet we must.
This God is not man-made, man-directed, or man-dependent. He works on his own perfect, wise, and sovereign timetable.
Regarding this dutiful patience toward God and his timing, G. Campbell Morgan once said, “Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given” (emphasis mine). Waiting on God is not easy. And yet we must.
In his excellent book So, You Want to Be Like Christ? Charles Swindoll encapsulates the reality for us, just in case we might miss the point:
God will never adjust His agenda to fit ours. He will not speed His pace to catch up with ours; we need to slow our pace in order to recover our walk with Him … God will not work within the framework of our complicated schedules; we must adapt to His style.
The pain of any trial only increases as we bloody our knuckles on the wall of God’s will. We cannot change the wisdom of his plan and so we cannot change the timing of his plan. Of course, I’m not saying “don’t pray about your trial”—this whole article is intended to encourage you to pray—but I am saying don’t grumble against the Lord. Instead, pray hard and harder, while always believing, trusting, bowing.
My God Will Hear Me
As we continue in intimate communion with our God, expectantly watching but faithfully waiting, we can rest assured that God has, and will continue to, hear our prayers!
Too often we judge answers to prayer by our feelings, our timetable, or our own solutions. But thankfully God is not limited to our small perspective in order to deliver us. Rest assured, weary saint, that God hears you when you pray.
Trust in God’s intimate knowledge of your pain or difficulty, and in his perfect timing and solution for it.
It may be from a quiet bedroom, or a crowded church pew, or a scenic nature spot, or even a tense conversation (Nehemiah 2:4)—God will always hear, and always answer, those who put their faith in him alone.
Remember this the next time you think you are too busy or burdened to ask God for help, or direction, or protection. Pray while you’re studying for or taking a test, making a sales presentation, apologizing to your spouse, or explaining the gospel to your children. God hears your prayers!
Keep laboring in God’s service, even when it feels like labor; keep working, even when you are weeping; keep holding to God’s way, even when your knuckles are white, and your spiritual muscles are trembling — all the while waiting and believing that my God will hear me. Trust in God’s intimate knowledge of your pain or difficulty, and in his perfect timing and solution for it.
(This article was first published at Servants of Grace.)