How Do We Know That God Hears Us When We Pray?

   We speak words, but where do they go?  We make unspoken requests in our hearts, but what happens to them?  We collectively make petitions in our assemblies, but do they reach beyond the ceiling?

We can know God! Fundamental to knowing that God hears us when we pray is knowing God.  God told us, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psa. 46:10).  “Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves” (Psa. 100:3).  Here is the confidence that Paul had (and the confidence we need to have) in God, “…I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Tim. 1:12).  What a tremendous blessing and comfort to know God!

We can know the Bible is from God! Pivotal to our knowledge that God hears us when we pray is the knowledge that when we pick up the Bible we are holding the words and promises of God.  The Bible both claims inspiration and gives overwhelming evidence to support its claims.  We can know that “all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), for when we study the Bible we come to know the indestructible unity, accuracy, fulfilled prophecy and scientific foreknowledge of this book, for which there can be no other reasoned explanation than the Almighty God!  What a tremendous blessing and comfort to know the Bible is His Word!

We can know that God cares about us and knows what we need! Essential to knowing that God hears us when we pray is knowing that He knows our needs even before we ask (Matt. 6:8, 32) and cares for us.  When I know that “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psa. 23:1).  God pleads with you to cast “all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7).  What a tremendous blessing and comfort!

We can know that God hears us when we pray! Knowing God, knowing the Bible is His Word, and knowing that He cares about our needs helps me to not “get a feeling” that God hears and answers my prayers, but to know it! Read these verses with joyful assurance:  “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 Jn. 5:14-15).  Yes, He hears me!  The Bible tells me so! What a blessing!  What a comfort!

~David Sproule