The Lord loves to be bothered by us. Imagine falling in love with someone and you are excited to know who they are and to talk to them. Every hour and every minute all you can think about is that person. You want to hear from them and share your thoughts with them. Imagine that person telling you that they had wanted to call you the night before about something that happened to them, but they didn’t want to bother you. In the meantime you were by the phone that whole entire time waiting for them to call, and wanted so much to hear from them. But nah, they didn’t want to bother you.
Imagine another scenario where you’re a parent and your child is away at college and had just broken up with her boyfriend. She’s in pain and she’s hurting but she didn’t want to call you when it happened and wouldn’t talk to you about it either, because she didn’t want to bother you. Imagine her telling your friend across the street about it instead, and that’s how you found out. How would you feel about it? Wouldn’t it hurt you?
Sometimes we need to be careful about how we view the Lord in regards to our problems and our idea of not bothering Him. We could actually end up hurting and offending the Lord.
I remember telling the Lord a request one time because someone had said to me, “Can you find out what the Lord thinks about this…?” When I went and talked to the Lord about it He said to me, “Why is she asking you?” Meaning, “Why doesn’t she ask Me?” They should have sought Him themselves for the answer. He will reveal His answer to anyone if we seek Him with all of our hearts.
We need to be careful that when we ask someone to pray for us, that we are also talking to the Lord ourselves. We can end up offending the Lord doing a relay message of our needs, when we ourselves can very much talk to Him.
Sometimes we can get this idea that another person is closer to the Lord than we are, and they can get a better answer than we do. Most likely, we don’t want to do the work of prayer ourselves or we don’t have enough faith that He will hear us. We want someone else to do the praying and seeking and believing for us. Be careful. God knows and sees everything. He doesn’t want someone else to talk to Him about you. He wants you to seek Him for yourself.
God wants to be bothered by us because He loves us so much. He said,
“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” {Matthew 7:11}
If we, who are full of faults and shortcomings want to be there for our children and want to give them what they need, how much more will God who is pure and good be there for us, and give to us if we talk to Him and ask Him?
Remember that parable in Luke 18 about the widow who annoyed the unjust judge by her continual coming to him to avenge her of her adversary? He didn’t want to hear and listen to her but she was persistent. She kept asking him to avenge her. Finally it got into his heart that he might as well do it, because he didn’t want to be bothered by her anymore. The Lord says to us,
“And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?” {Luke 18:1-9}
People (a friend, a loved-one, even those we think we can rely on) will get weary with us if we keep asking them for help. But not the Lord. He will bear long with us. He has patience with us. How much more then will He come and help us if we keep coming to Him?
It’s not a bother to the Lord if we want Him. He doesn’t play favorites. Rich or poor, young or old, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. People may judge us by our appearance, but God looks at the heart. He cares what’s inside our hearts. If our heart says, “Lord I need You. I am lost without You. Please help me to acknowledge my faults and my iniquities, and correct them. Please save me.” That’s what impresses Him. That’s what causes Him to come near. He’s not impressed with how much money we’ve made, or how smart we are, or even if we’ve done everything right. What impresses Him is our being needy of Him. He doesn’t care if we are always needing Him and talking to Him. This is what He loves, this is what tugs at His heart. The more we need Him and talk to Him and can’t live without Him, the more He loves it. The more He is drawn to us. Why? Because He’s in love with us. He gets excited to hear from us. He looks forward to hearing from us. When you’re in love with someone you want them to need you. It’s not a bother to you when they need you. You are more than happy to be there for them. You love them so much you want them to come to you. That’s how God feels about us. He gave up His life at the cross to prove it, what more can we want from Him that He will not give to us? We can bother Him all the time. Jesus tells us Himself,
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” {Matthew 11:28-30}
Prayer
Lord, I love You and I thank You for the faithfulness of Your love for me. I thank You that I can always come to You no matter what time of day or hour, You are always there and can always be found.
Help me Father to love You and to trust in Your love for me. Help me to come to You all the time, no matter how small my problems are or how insignificant my situation seems. Help me Jesus, to talk to You all the time and seek Your face all the time. Teach me to go to You first before I call on anyone else for help or for comfort. Give me confidence in Your love for me, Father, I pray. In Your most sweet and lovely name, Jesus. Thank You, Father. Amen.
Image by Ngọc Tuấn Ngọc from Pixabay
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