You Asked. God Answered. Did You Hear Him?

Pause. Listen.

You've been asking. Pleading. Hoping. But have you paused long enough to hear what He has already said?

I was meditating on Isaiah 30:15, "This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: 'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.'"

There is a kind of weariness that no amount of striving can fix. A tiredness that lingers in the soul - the kind we carry even after praying hard, fasting long and asking God again and again. But what if the silence we keep interpreting as delay is actually the space where God already responded?

This verse is God's gentle rebuke to His people, not because He had withdrawn, but because they refused the very posture that would allow them to receive what He had already made available. He had offered them salvation - not through more effort, but through repentance and rest. He had made strength available - not through more noise, but through quietness and trust.

And still, they would have none of it. Isn't that us sometimes?

We plead for peace but refuse stillness. We cry for direction but fill our time with endless noise. We pray for answers but never linger long enough to hear the answer. God is not distant. He is not withholding. But He speaks in stillness. And if we don't pause, we miss it.

Could it be that the thing you've been praying for... has already been given? Could it be that the answer has been waiting for you, not in the next word you speak, but in the silence you've avoided?

You've asked. You've pleaded. You've hoped.

Now pause.

And listen again.

Lord, forgive us for rushing into prayer and rushing out with our

hands still empty when all along You were waiting to fill us in the quiet place.

Teach us to value stillness.

Help us to trust what You've already spoken.

Let our strength be found not in the noise or striving,

but in quietness and trust.

In Jesus' name

Amen.