11292025 I Hear Your Prayers

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of our gentle, loving God. I have finished reading through the Psalms, looking for His gentle words. I am now filling out some of those concepts. Here is the first. One of the gentle reassurances from God is “I hear your prayers.”

Why would I doubt this? Basically because I am human and because my knowledge is limited. I don’t always see the answers I seek, and I don’t always see them right away. I don’t know why God chooses to answer differently or chooses to delay. I don’t know His big picture or how He is incorporating the situation into His bigger plan. But the biggest challenges in my struggles with prayer are when those delays or different answers happen on a grand scale. When I go through a stage that it seems that none of my numerous important requests are being answered. When it seems like He denies multiple times or delays to an extraordinary length of time. Or when He gives the answer (or at least seems to be moving things in the direction of an answer). Just when I am thanking Him for His answer, He reverses things, and what He had done (or had been doing) dissipates into disappointment. At those times I can be tempted to feel like there is no reason for me to continue praying. What difference does it make? My prayers feel useless and ineffective, and I doubt whether God will choose to do anything that I ask. For some reason unknown to me, it feels like He has turned the setting for my prayers to ignore or disregard. But God says . . .

“The LORD will hear when I call unto Him” (4:3).

“Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up” (5:1-3).

“The LORD hath heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer” (6:9).

“I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech” (17:6).

“In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears” (18:6).

“Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped” (28:6-7).

“O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me” (30:2).

“I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD” (40:1-3).

“But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me” (66:19-20).

“I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live” (116:1-2).

God says, “I hear your prayers. They reach me. I hear your burdens. In fact, I know what you need before you ask. Often I am already moving things to work out the answer. But I do know what is best, and I do know the best way to bring about the best answer. Sometimes you will just need to wait on Me and trust Me, even when I delay or give an answer that you do not expect. In the midst of your confusion or disappointment over the current situation, do not forget how many times I have answered prayer for you in the past. I do hear you. Keep praying. It is the right thing to do. I want you to come to Me. I want you to acknowledge Me as the source of your help and as the strength in your need.”

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA