As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
“1I
love the Lord, because He heard my voice [and] my prayers. 2Because
He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”
After studying verse 1, I am really enjoying practicing
thankfulness and letting it feed love in my heart. We know from Galatians that
a fruit of the Spirit is love – which means that love will grow where He is
present. We don’t have to know ahead of time “how.” We just know it will. And
here’s another place where I see it happen in my own life. I’m just studying
the Bible and all of a sudden in one little verse of seven (Hebrew) words, He
shows me a “secret.” He shows me that as I choose to think thankful thoughts, I
actually become more loving. That is so awesome and liberating. Words fail me
to express the wonder of it all. It just makes me want to study more. The Word of
God is alive and powerful. It’s not just dead words on paper. It’s as if it
lays there and breathes with life. As I touch it, it infuses me with hope. It
changes me for the better. It shows me the way that I cannot see. Long my
imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused
a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light! My chains fell off, my
heart was free; I rose went forth and followed Thee! Amazing Love, How can it
be? What can I render unto the Lord for all His goodness to me? As I said, it
just makes me want to study more … which brings us to verse two:
“Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”
Where do we begin? After more than thirty
years of answered prayers, what do I want to do?
Pray more.
And that’s how it should be. All that
matters is to know God. And to know Him at all is to want to know Him better.
We come to Him blind and deaf and crippled and rotting in the leprosy of our
own sinful self-destruction. We come to Him barely even comprehending at all
Who He is. We only know we need … and
something awakens in our heart to know it’s Him,
whatever that means. We crack the door of our burdened, broken hearts with our
feeble, fumbling, moaning prayers and even a single ray of His light suddenly infuses
in us hope. I’m alive again! And
every little glimpse of His beautiful face only makes us hunger for more. The
more we know, the more we want to know. He is altogether lovely. As Jeremy Camp sings, “You can have all
this world, Just give me Jesus.”
“Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”
What a wonder it is. The Almighty stoops to
hear this beggar’s whimpering whispers. The Almighty cares. The Almighty cares about me.
In our lives, other people quickly tire of our neediness. But not our Lord. He is saving God. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins.” He doesn’t save us because we need to be saved. He
saves us because He is a saving God. That’s Who He is. He doesn’t say “Come in
your best clothes.” He just says, “Come.”
And so we bring our neediness to the throne
of Grace and find that we “obtain mercy and grace to help in our time of need.”
What a wonder it all is. It’s
inexpressible.
What ‘s also a wonder is how even after all
of this, after over thirty years of the wonder of Who He is, after over thirty
years of amazing answered prayers, my evil heart still stands in the path and
whispers in my ear, “It’s no use to pray. It won’t do any good.”
“Evil” isn’t a bad enough word.
No. A thousand times no.
“Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.”
Rise up, my heart, and call on Him who is your hope! And do
it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day.
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