I Have Heard Your Groaning - January 21, 2009

Title: I Have Heard Your Groaning Topic: Prayer, Parenting, Children

Scripture: Exodus 6:2 - 8 (NKJV) And God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the Lord. 3I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Lord I was not known to them. 4I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. 5And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. 6Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 7I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.’”

Observation: God commissions Moses to be the leader of His people and to deliver them from slavery. God, the compassionate God and Father that he is, sends Moses to remind His people that He has not forgotten them, that while they have been bearing heavy burdens He has been by their side, that He did not create slavery, that He abhors it, and that He will not let them suffer forever. He wants them to remember that He remembers the covenant He established with their ancestors Abraham, Issac, and Jacob and that He will act on their behalf.

Application: What attracts me the most about these passages is that God does not forget His promises toward us and that he hears our prayers.
1. He remembers. There are many promises from God to us as parents concerning our children and He makes it clear that He does and will remember them. I am mostly concerned with His promises of salvation for us and our children. We can claim those promises, because he made them, and he will keep them.
2. He Hears. Even at those times when we think or feel that our prayers are not going anywhere and the answer seems delay, we can be assured that God hears us. My concern is that it is not just the hurried prayers but rather the groaning that He seems to pay special attention to. It is not the quick, simple prayer we need to utter, but too spend careful, calculated time with God, pleading for our children, as if their very lives depended on it, because it does. Parents with seriously ill children do that, why not do it for our children who are seriously suffering from the deadly disease of sin?

Prayer: Hear our prayer, Oh Lord, for our children this day, because they are also your children. Save them, Father, even when they don’t realize the need for salvation. Forgive them, Father, even when they don’t realize when they have offended You. Heal them, Father, even though they don’t recognize their disease. Bless the, O God, for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ.