Job 13:23–24: “How many are my [Job] iniquities and sins? / Make me know my transgression and my sin. / Why do You hide Your face, / And regard me as Your enemy?”

December 8th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Job turned his appeal from his friends, who were not helping him at all, to God. Job knew he was a sinner, but he seemed to want to know the degree and severity of his sin so he could determine if his suffering matched it. This would also enable him to repent of sins he was unaware of, but the heavens were silent. Although surrounded by his friends, he felt alone.

Life is hard, and sometimes it feels as though no one is listening, even when we pray. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”¹ It seems when we are filled with happiness or even just busy with the cares of this world, our spiritual hearing is blocked and it’s impossible for us to hear the whispering voice of God. Our heavenly Father is speaking to us but we fail to slow down enough, be still enough, to listen to Him. When we fail to take the time for purposeful listening, because of our overflowing life, His communication process is blocked. In Luke 8:8, Jesus cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Patrick Goldman, past vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board told of a stewardess who was so frustrated by her passenger’s inattentiveness to her preflight talk that she changed the wording, saying, “When the oxygen mask drops down in front of you, place it over your navel and continue to breathe normally.” Not a single passenger noticed. But God is persistent in His love and concern toward us, crying out to us in our pain, until He finally has our attention.

“LORD, give us ears to hear You today. We want You to speak, LORD, and we want to be faithful servants who listen.”

¹C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940; repr., San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 91.