God Doesn’t Despise Our Cries
I was really blessed by a simple lesson I learned at home with my kids the other day. I was feeding our baby some breakfast in an otherwise quiet house. The other three were asleep. The baby started making noise, and because everyone in the house was asleep, I tried to quiet her down, saying, “shush.”
The moment that I did that, I felt the Lord say to my heart, “You know, I never say shush to you.”
And that really spoke to me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking a baby to be quiet when others are sleeping, but there is a spiritual truth there that I want to hold dear: the Lord never asks me to be quiet when I cry out to him. Especially as I shared recently about persisting in prayer, this is a very important reminder, that the Lord does not despise my cries to Him.
That comforting thought reminded me of Bartimaeus, who cried to the Lord for help, and how it was the crowd (and not Jesus) that tried to silence him (Mark 10:48). And it reminded me of the Canaanite woman, and how it was the disciples (and not Jesus) who tried to silence her when she cried out (Matthew 15:22). In neither case did Jesus try to silence the cries of those in need; on the contrary, He was the One Who was sympathetic to their cries, even as many others despised the commotion they caused.
This made me want to be skeptical of every bit of self-consciousness in crying out. It is not the voice of the Holy Spirit that tells me to stop crying. I need to reject every voice that tells me that I should not cry out, and instead cast myself gladly into the arms of my loving Savior, Who always hears, and welcomes, and answers my cries.
I was also encouraged to see that both Bartimaeus and the Canaanite woman reached Jesus because they rejected the shame of crying out. I couldn’t help but wonder how many others might have come to Jesus in need, but listening to the opposition of the crowd who discouraged their cries, stopped crying out, and left empty-handed. I’m sure that there are many untold stories of those who never received all that they hoped for because they believed Jesus must despise their cries too.
I never want to fall short of receiving all that Jesus longs to give me because I’m embarrassed to cry out, or because I listen to the voices (even the voice of shame inside my own head) that tell me stop crying. I want to run to Him, freely crying out as a child does to a Father, confident that He loves it when I call out to Him.