Other Answers

Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
When I call, answer me.


Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Come and listen to me.

It's a reflective and quiet melody. (Here's a link to listen to it.) I prayed it this morning.

What troubles me is two-fold. First off, when I pray it, I feel a bit (or a little more than a bit) like a hypocrite. My heart cries out as if God has not been answering me. But when I take my blinders of self-pity off, it's patently obvious that God has blessed me in literally uncountable ways. My life is a litany of blessings. It's just that my personality focuses on the disappointments.

So that's the first problem. When God answers me, and he does, do I even notice?

The second one is even more challenging than the first. I recently finished Night by Elie Wiesel. Shaken to the core, I have to ask, "Did Elie see any answer to his prayer?" The answer was No. Not from Elie's perspective, at the time. And who could blame him? Upon his entry into a Nazi death camp, he walked past a pile of burning human flesh. Men. Women. Children. Babies.

That is my second problem. Whoever answered Elie's prayers is the one who answered mine. In light of Elie's experience, that's not a comforting thought.

And between these two problems I struggled mightily as I pondered the God who answers all prayers. It's a package deal. The same God answers them all.

But then a very encouraging thought ran through my mind. The package includes Jesus. God the father answered the prayer of Jesus Christ. Jesus despaired too. Jesus knew the answer was not what he wanted to hear. And Jesus went to Calvary, for me, because that was God's answer to my unspoken prayer. My unspoken need.

The God who answered my prayer answered Elie's prayer. And Jesus' prayer. All three of us experienced the sense of abandonment. My experience pales before that which Elie endured. And Elie was not Jesus. But across the wide spectrum of experience it's the sense of abandonment that haunts us worst. When we pray, and the world seems silent, we inevitably feel abandoned. Does God care?

So it may not be the answer I want – but it's the answer a loving God gives to both me, Elie, and Jesus.

"Take up your cross. I'm not going to tell you otherwise."

If we're not in the mood for a cross, we'll certainly feel abandoned.

But this is what God's son experienced. If Jesus is to be formed in me, I will need to make my peace with the occasional feeling of abandonment.

Take up your cross.

What comfort is there in that? It is in the knowledge that beyond the cross lies life. Eternal life. Life with God. Beyond my petty day-to-day grind. Beyond the death camps of Germany. Beyond the cross where God himself died alone.

Beyond. Just a bit beyond that which is gruesome and just beyond that which wearies a human man.

God himself awaits me.

And he loves me.

On the other side of the cross, I will never be alone again.

Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
When I call, answer me.


Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Come and listen to me.