A God Who Answers

It is 6:45 in the morning now. I am sitting in front of closed cafeteria doors. Usually breakfast opens at 7:15 and since I knew this I'd taken my Bible hoping to have some "alone" time with God before breakfast. Not today. No, today breakfast opened later. It opened at 8:15. Thankfully I still had my Bible. But what I want to share now is not something I've read while sitting and waiting for breakfast. It is not even something I read while eating my bagel with cream cheese. No, this is something I read while walking towards breakfast. Yeah, I know (believe, me I know) that walking and reading can be dangerous. Once I was knocked down by a parked truck I didn't see because I had my head so buried in the book I was reading. But today I repeated the experience. Not the accident, I mean the combination of reading and walking. I read Psalm 38. I was going to read in Jeremiah but when I opened my Bible it opened to Psalm 38 and so I decided to read it. Wow!

The first four verses speak of how badly sin can wreck a person's life. It made me think of my own "sin tolerance" levels. A friend of mine and I sometimes speak of this and refer to it as such, as "sin tolerance" levels. You know, the whole story of how much sin our bodies or minds can cope with in a movie or a book or a song or any other sort of activity. Sometimes I get careless. In these first four verses it spoke of God's wrath on sin. God firing His missiles against the agent of sin. We are the agents of sin. It's not "the devil made me do it." Rather, it is "I chose to do this." But then it also spoke of the psalmists shame over his sin. It spoke of his grief over his sin and the burden that it was for him. In fact, it was such a burden that his entire body was wracked in pain, even his bones were restless because of sin. Sin doesn't always bother me as much as it should. Instead I flirt with seeing just how far I can go in "tolerating" it. That's wrong. That's dead wrong.

Then, sort of to cheer me up, but not so much either, I read verse 9. In verse 9 the psalmist says that God knows all his desires. Just to know that God knows is a relief. He knows everything. So is it really all that much of a relief? It's kind of a mixed bag for me. I like it that He knows the good (or good desires) in me, but I don't like it that He knows of all the rest. You know, the bad(or bad desires) in me. Actually the rest of me, the bad stuff, that's the majority of me.

But my climax came with verse 15. That is when I stopped walking. I just stopped dead in my tracks. My heart felt as if it'd stopped too. Something else started up though. A feeling of gratitude. You know, the kind that starts in the pit of your stomach and blossoms in your heart and shines out your eyes. Yeah, my eyes were shining - they were welling with tears. What a great verse! The verse promises a God who answers.

Yes, I might be a sinner. Yes, I might not hate my sin as much as I should. Yes, it might not even bother me all that much sometimes. Yes, I might overlook the fact that God knows about my desires and even my breath. Yes, I might try to fend for myself and not care that I am hurting Him. But God still answers.

Not only does He know (vs. 9) but He also answers (vs. 15). Often we talk of not getting the answers we want and the rest of all that jazz. It's silly. We don't deserve any answer at all. We're fortunate just to have Him even condescend to speak with us. So you know what, who cares? God knows and even though He knows (or is it because He knows?) He still chooses to answer us. That's enough for me. Who cares about what answers I might want? All I care about is getting an answer from Him.

But then I froze. The early part of that same verse says that God responds or answers because he (the psalmist) had waited on Him. That means it is a conditional answering service. But then I thought about it some more. Yes, it is conditional, but it doesn't say what condition the waiting has to be in. Job waited a little impatiently and God answered him. Or as Peter Kreeft said, "Job's faith is not sunny and serene, but it is faith. It is not without doubts. (Indeed, his doubts came from his faith. When faith is full, it is open and can include doubts; when it is weak, it cannot tolerate doubts.)" Or we could use the example of Jonah. Yes, Jonah also waited on God. Not with the same kind of doubt as Job, but still with doubt. The difference is Jonah's doubt was an angry doubt, it was an impatient doubt. Yet Jonah also waited on God and he also received an answer. So I suppose the condition of the waiting doesn't matter as long as the condition of waiting is met. God will answer.