6-1-2016

 Good Morning All!! 

        Psalm 4:1; “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!  You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!”

    "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"  We have asked this question before.  From its earliest form in the 1710 work by George Berkeley down through the years to its modern form, it has been a standard in philosophical discussion and debate.  It comes down to one of two thoughts.  The first is that sound is defined by the one who hears.  In order for there to be sound there has to be an ear to hear it.  The other thought is that sound is produced by the compression of air waves which emanate from a source.  Since sound is a mechanical action which involves air, as long as there is air there is sound.  And the debate goes on and on.

    If you sound a lament, cry out in pain or suffering and there is no one there to hear it, are you still in pain?  Of course you are pain exists because you experience it.  Yet there may be many times when you think no one hears.  I remember vividly a conversation that I had with an individual who was dying of cancer.  He commented on how he would awake early in the morning, around 3:30 am.  There was just total silence except for maybe a creaking board or the noise of the furnace running.  He said in the silence, it felt like all sound was stifled.  He would try to go back to sleep but couldn’t so he would try to pray but in the silence, he felt as if the sound of the prayer was swallowed by the thickness of the silence.

     Perhaps you have been there.  Trying to sleep in a hospital and trying to recover from some illness.  Perhaps your malady doesn’t appear to have a cure; “old age” the doctor says “you’ll have to live with it.”  Maybe late at night, when you reach over to touch the spouse who was there for over fifty years is no longer there, you silently cry out.  The person in an abusive situation, the Christian who faces persecution, torture and death cry out but are they heard or does the thickness of silence, the apathy of the world, destroy the sound?

     While the devil wants you to think you are unheard, God hears every cry.  The cry of a broken and contrite heart roars through heaven; God hears and God responds.  Just as a parent comforts a child who has fallen down and skinned their knee; so God holds us.  God holds us tenderly to his heart, enfolding his loving arms around us.  God hears and whispers back in a soft but strong voice, “be silent and know that I am God.”  Rest in the comfort of the knowledge that God, who created everything and redeemed you through Jesus is the one who is holding you and comforting you and will never let you go.

    So cry out to the Lord.  There is no silence so thick that God’s love and mercy cannot penetrate.  God hears and God heals.  Thanks be to God!

Father in heaven, you hear my cry and you comfort me.  You hear my sorrow and you console me.  Strengthen me so that I will always trust in your mercy.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret