God Is Defined By Hearing Us More Than Answering Us

​I have been in relationships where I knew I had not been heard. I knew it because there was no remote sign of an answer in response to my talking or sharing.

That is hard. That can be defeating.

Isolating.

Maybe worse than all of that, though, it can lend to my believing that if I do not get an answer from God, then God too has not heard me.

They don't listen to me, God must not either.

But where too often we define each other by our answers - we use each other's answers to measure one other's attention and presence - God is defined by faith.

Steven Furtick says, "In between prayer and the answer is faith."

The challenge is we live in a world where answers keep coming quicker and quicker. The gap between question and answer keeps disappearing.

Google it.

ChatGPT it.

But God doesn't want to be defined by speedy answers; God wants to be defined by the strength that keeps us moving when we don't have any answers at all.

It feels like God is more interested in me knowing that he always hears even when my pity party wants to convince me he refuses to answer.

God doesn't want my perceived lack of answers to isolate me from him, he wants it to draw me closer to him in trust.

I think back on those challenging relationships. The truth is it wasn't the lack of answers that felt so defeating - it was knowing I wasn't heard. It was knowing my words carried no importance.

I have come to know that every word I think and say is important to God. I know it because many things I have thought or said years and even decades ago, God keeps finding ways to show up and say, I heard you.

Sometimes that shows up like a memory. Other times as new found wisdom - ah ha moments. And yes, often as a long awaited answer.

We demand answers. God longs for us to know we are heard even in the absence of answers. Too often worldly relationships are built on answers; a relationship with God is built on faith and trust.

I am heard; I need no answers to know it.