There was a woman subject to bleeding for many years who pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus. She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed." (Matthew 9:21).
These words were not spoken, but her actions revealed the earnest desire to be healed. Before she touched his garments, God had heard her painful thought. And He must of heard something else deeper still. A heart still holding to a thread of hope that perhaps this Great Physician will do what other doctors had failed to do by bringing relief to her suffering.
Are you in need of healing? Is your heart broken? Is your mind in need of peace? God already knows and hears what the heart is saying before any words are spoken.
While having lunch in a coffee shop, I read of how Moses talked to the Lord, pleading for Him not to destroy Israel after they sinned by worshipping a golden calf. The words caught my attention when it says God listened to Moses.
At that moment, the Lord spoke to me. Do you know I listen to you? My eyes brimmed with tears. In that moment I realized so much of my prayers - long and poetic or just plain pathetic - were driven by the need to know, to really know God hears the longings of my heart.
Jesus speaking of the Gentiles when they prayed babbled and thought by their many words they can be heard (Matthew 6:7, see Ecclesiates 5:2). There is a time when words fail and your native tongue can't describe what really is going on in the heart.
Sometimes prayer is simply tears falling from your face. It can be your hand reaching up to God with only a few words, "God, please help me." Or like Hannah who moved her lips but there was no sound, only her heart was praying (ISamuel 1:13).
Whatever the sound we make or gesture toward God, we have this precious promise. The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. (Psalms 34:17 NIV).
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