Your Prayer Has Been Heard

There are two kinds of waiting. There’s anticipation, like waiting for the first day of summer vacation.  And then there’s just plain waiting- indefinitely, anxiously. Trapped in a piece of unsettled time between activities. When you can’t fully relax, can’t start working on something, you just wait, ready at any moment to rush off to the next thing. 

For me, sometimes being single feels like the worst kind of waiting. People try to convince you that it’s the good kind, and that it will be worth it when you meet the right person, but in the moment it feels a bit like standing on the sidelines while the cool kids are picking teams for dodgeball. And you figure eventually you’ll get picked, but you dread how long it will be before you do.

The Gospel of Luke starts with a story about a couple who were well acquainted with waiting. Zechariah and Elizabeth had never been able to have children and they were, at this point, “both very old.” One day, as Zechariah is carrying out his duties in the temple, he is met by a messenger from God who tells him that his wife will have a child. The angel’s opening line is, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard” (Luke 1 v.13). 

Your prayer has been heard. 

I’m sure there was a part of Zechariah that wondered what prayer this heavenly being could possibly be referring to. Had he prayed for peace in his hometown? For freedom from the Romans? Had he prayed for prosperity or the relief from pain? 

I’m sure his prayers for a child were the farthest things from his mind. After all, he was old. His wife was old. They had given up on that prayer a long time ago.

How many years did Zechariah and Elizabeth breathe that prayer as they watched friends and relatives welcome squirming bundles of joy into their lives? Had they prayed more as the lonely years wore on? I wonder when Elizabeth had finally grieved and accepted her fate. When had the prayers stopped? Ten years before? Twenty? 

And then an angel stands in front of Zechariah and says, your prayer has been heard. All the countless prayers that you thought were wasted. The ones that you have long forgotten ever uttering. They have been answered. You are going to have a son. 

It seems a little cruel, a little unnecessary, for God to wait so long before giving an answer to their prayers. We get so easily wrapped up in this moment, in what is happening or not happening right now, and I think we expect God to be the same way. How can He be so leisurely with answering our prayers? Doesn’t He know how it feels for me to wait like this? 

But God’s timing isn’t our timing. He is outside of time. To Him, the hopeful prayers whispered during Elizabeth’s youth were as present as the mournful sighs of her old age. 

Sometimes we can’t see why God would make us wait for something good. A job, a husband, a child, an opportunity. It seems like maybe He’s just tuning us out.

But we don’t know the end of our story. And maybe it will turn out to be better than we could possibly plan or imagine.

Because He has heard us. And He will not forget even a single prayer.