How Does God Hear Us When We Pray?

Another question often arises when we discuss the necessity of prayer: How exactly does God hear us?

I think back to when my wife and I were engaged to be married more than 40 years ago and a particular wedding shower we attended.

It seemed everybody was talking at once. I couldn’t follow the conversation at all. I had no idea what was going on.

My now-wife, Janet, was easily following it all. When it was done, she could have told you what everybody had said, but I absolutely was lost in that. I can’t understand two people if they’re talking at the same time.

So, how can the Lord understand two billion people talking at the same time?

We know that he’s omniscient. We know that he’s omnipotent. We figure it must just be something he can do because he’s God and we’re not. In a sense, that’s true, but there’s another factor that really is important in understanding the power of prayer.

God is not bound by time. C. S. Lewis says you can think of time as a line on a page; God is the page. We are bound by the space-time continuum, as scientists say. We experience the world linearly, with past and present and future, and this moment is the only moment that there is. This is all of reality there is.

Well, God isn’t bound by any of that. He created time and he transcends time, and, one day, time shall be no more, as the Bible says.

God does not live in this time continuum that we are in. What that means is: God has all of eternity to listen to your next prayer.

He’s not bound by time as we are. He literally has all of eternity to talk to you, to listen to you, to shape you, to mold you, to empower you, to give you what his grace intends to give you.

He has all of that time for you.

He’s therefore always wanting and longing for an intimate, personal connection with you, like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Now that you know why we pray, and that our Father longs to hear from us, the question is: Will you?

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