IS GOD DEAF?

Have you ever wondered if God really hears your prayers? Do you sometimes thing that he is so old that he has gone deaf or perhaps he doesn’t read his e mails?  “Hello God, are you still there? Can you hear me now?”

Well, you’re not alone. The prophet Habakkuk felt the same way. In Hab 1:2-4 he cries out to God asking, “How long, O Lord must I call for help but you DO NOT LISTEN. Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save. Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” Habakkuk felt the same frustration that we feel. Where is God when we hurt? Why doesn’t God, who is all loving, all good and all powerful DO SOMETHING!

We pray for sick friends, and many of them still die. We pray for a job, and we remain out of work.  We pray for marriages to heal, and people still get divorced.

The Psalmist also wondered “Where is God?” In Psalms 44:23-24 he cries out, “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?”

And Job also thought that God was too passive, uninvolved. In Job 24:12 it reads, “The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrong doing.”

Does God still answer prayers or should be believe as the Deists did, that God created the world, but then sort of rode off into the sunset and doesn’t intervene?

Well, God did hear the prayers of Habakkuk, Job, the Psalmist and you and me. He did answer Habakkuk, in his own good time. In Hab 1:5 God responds to his challenge. God says, “Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed. I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”  In other words, God says, “Settle down Habakkuk, I know exactly what’s going on and I have a plan that will knock your socks off.” God goes on to say in verse 6, “I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.” God is saying that He knows the evil that is taking place in Israel, and He is going to use the dreaded Babylonians to punish them. Habakkuk is shocked, shocked that God, a Holy God, and would use the corrupt, violent Babylonians to punish Israel. In verse Habakkuk says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked (Babylonians) swallow up those more righteous than themselves (Israel)?”

God responds by say in chapter 2, verse 3 that at the “appointed time” He will make His move and when He is done using the Babylonians to punish Israel, He will then destroy the Babylonians. God is not deaf, nor is He unaware of what is going in Habakkuk’s life or in ours. He does have a plan, which He is under no obligation to reveal to us the details and He has a timetable of His own. Habakkuk then writes in chapter 2:4, speaking of the Babylonians, “See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright-but the righteous (that’s Habakkuk and you and me) will live by his faith.” The expression that the “righteous shall life by faith” is repeated in Heb 10:38-39.

I am reminded of a comment at an instructor made at Emmaus Bible College that I was attending. After discussing a difficult passage he said, “There are three possible interpretations.” He then went on to give the explanations with the strengths and weaknesses of each. Then he said that is preferred one interpretation over the others because it had fewer problems associated with it. Then he asked us this question: “Is it all right if God knows something that you don’t?”  Think about that question for a little while. When you read commentaries on the Bible, the honest scholars will sometimes say, “This is a difficult passage in a difficult book.” Or, “Scholars are not in agreement as to the exact meaning of this expression.” When Job demanded of God an explanation as to the “WHY” of his sufferings, God responded by saying, in effect, “I’m God and you are not, I don’t have to answer to you.” Job never got an explanation, but he went on to praise God. 

We don’t have all of the answers to our questions. We have to walk by faith and get to the point that it is all right if God knows something that we don’t.