People hear what they want to hear. God hears the cry of your heart. He does not filter your words through some bias or interpret them to mean something they were not intended to. He will not nitpick at you or belittle you for using the past tense when a present tense participle would have been the proper way of phrasing it, nor will He reject you for your lack of eloquence when crying out to Him.
If one of my children is crying out for help, I would not
fail to answer because they did not address me in Old World English or because
their tone was a bit too shrieky. They cry, and I run to their aid because they
are in need of my help, protection, or comfort. The words they use, the volume
thereof, or the cadence they appropriate is irrelevant in such situations. Yes,
dear, I see you fell and scraped your knee, but you did not address me as sire;
therefore, I did not respond to your cries. Knowest though better for next
time? Verily, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.
The only rule that applies when we’re crying out to God is
that we do so with a sincere heart. Every other pet peeve men have thought up
is just that, a man-made preference, and not a Biblical dictate or mandate.
Leave others to their dead gods, to pray in a specific direction at specific
times with specific wording and genuflection. Let them ring bells, light
incense, or roll their eyes into the back of their skulls until only the whites
show. You approach God in spirit and in truth, cry out to Him with a sincere
heart, and know that He hears you.
Men read into things, situations, circumstances, the specific
wording we use, and the inflection with which we use them, but God sees the
situation for what it is and knows our hearts better than we ourselves know
them. A loving father would not turn away his children because they cry too
much or too little, because their posture is not rigid enough, or because their
tone isn’t appropriately sorrowful. God is a loving father. Therefore, He will
not turn you away due to irrelevant things men deem worthy of rejection.
Stand before Him as you are, without pretense or the attempt
to put on a façade, and pour your heart out to Him. Acknowledge your frailty,
your weakness, your battles, your wounds, your scars, your setbacks, and your
inconsistency. Be honest with Him. He already knows it all anyway.
When we attempt to stand before God clothed in our
righteousness, we make fools of ourselves. When we stand before God clothed in
Christ, understanding that His sacrifice and not our abilities have reconciled
us with Him, humility will be an ever-present companion.
Luke 18:9-14, “Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted
in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ‘Two men went up
to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not
like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax
collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the
tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to
heaven, but beat his breast saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell
you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be
exalted.”’
When we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, it is He
who lifts us up. It’s not something we do on our own or something we talk ourselves
into manifesting. There are situations where no amount of pulling ourselves up
by our bootstraps will suffice, and the only remedy is to reach out, take His
hand, and allow Him to do what He does, as He wills, when He wills. When you’re
drowning and someone throws you a life preserver, you don’t complain that it’s
the wrong color or that it doesn’t match your swimsuit. You grab it, cling to
it, and show gratitude for having had your life saved from an untimely death.
Zophar heard what he wanted to hear in Job’s words. “You say
my doctrine is pure, and I am clean in your eyes”, Zophar reminded Job, even
though Job had never said those words. Zophar needed to make his point; he
needed to defend his position, and if he had to twist the truth in order to fit
his presuppositions, to him, it was a small price to pay if it meant being
right.
Men see what they want to see. They hear what they want to
hear, but God knows the truth of it since nothing is hidden from His eyes. There
are even those who go out of their way looking for something they can object
to, some twitch of the eye, or wave of a hand, or an out-of-place word that
they can then magnify and point to as something legitimate rather than the
ruminations of their contentious minds. If the same judgmental eye were to be
turned on them, they would wilt and wither under its glare and demand that it stop,
lest they crumble under its weight altogether.
No, I didn’t rub my eye because I’m Illuminati. I rubbed my
eye because it was itching. I have allergies, and there’s pollen in the air.
When we demand perfection of everyone around us but fail to apply the same
standard to ourselves, all we are is pharisaical hypocrites who see ourselves
in an undeserved light.
Some people have taken to calling themselves full-time heresy
hunters, using it as an excuse for why they haven’t been looking in the mirror
of the Word and dealing with the issues in their own lives. It’s far more
rewarding to one’s ego to endlessly point out the shortcomings in others,
whether real or perceived, than it is to deal with our own, but our primary
duty is to ensure that we are working out our own salvation with fear and trembling
before we dare to sit in judgment of everyone else, whether living or dead.
Matthew 7:2, “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 14 March 2025 | 10:14 am
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