God Wide Open

Have you ever done this: you text a friend for an answer you need right away or for help that you need right now, and....nothing. No answer. No reply. Yet somehow, as soon as you text a simple "nm" (never mind), your friend is like, "Cool. Sorry. I just saw this." 

How about this one? Your friend texts you for an answer or for help, and you wrestle with yourself for a long time, trying to figure out how to answer. Probably because you love your friend, but you also love whatever you're doing at the moment (including "just chilling") and you're not sure you really want to commit to getting involved, so you just wait. You wait until a little bit later, your friend texts you back "nm" and with a sigh of relief, you reply, "Cool. Sorry. I just saw this." 

Don't pretend this isn't happening. Don't pretend your friends aren't doing it. Don't pretend you aren't doing it to your friends. 

Or coworkers. (But I digress.) (Or do I?)

We live in a world where we're waiting on someone else to step up and do it. Someone else to step in and take care of it. Someone else to respond and to help. Not because we don't love our friends, but because it can be very inconvenient to actually help someone else; it costs us something - in time, in resources, in money, in whatever. So most of the time, we wait. And hope someone else goes. 

Thank the Lord that He is not like us. 

Psalm 22 says, "He's not put off by the suffering of the suffering one; He doesn't pretend He hasn't seen him; when he pleaded for help, He listened." 

God is right there. All the time. Listening. Not put off. Ready to help. 

Text God in the middle of the day, He's there. Text Him in the middle of the night, He's coming. Cry out for help, He's not waiting. He's on His way. It might feel like He's taking the long route through Timbuktu, but He's on His way. 

He's not troubled by how needy you are. He doesn't groan at your asking. He doesn't sit around looking at your request and hoping someone else steps up for you. He doesn't wait until we've got it handled, then say, "Phew. Great. Cool." 

God is never going to say, "Sorry. I just saw this." He saw it the moment you sent it; He heard you the moment you prayed; He listened the second you cried out. 

And He's coming. 

Isn't it great to have a Friend like that?