In Isaiah 65:24, God promised His “servants” (verses 13-16) that the time will come (verses 12 ff.) when He’ll answer before we even call to Him, and even while we are still voicing our request He will “hear”. The consistency of this will be a hallmark of “a new heavens and a new earth”, where wolves will peacefully lie next to lambs and lions will eat “straw” with herbivores to avoid hurting anything in God’s holy presence. So far we’ve not consistently experienced God’s answering before we call because there are impediments in our present “heavens and earth” that can either prevent His answers from reaching us, or prevent us from perceiving/ receiving His answers. We can see an example of the first kind of impediment in Daniel’s Chapter 10 testimony. Although Daniel went on a 21-day partial fast to seek God for answers, an angel had to explain to him on day 21, “From the first day … your words were heard (and) I have come … However, the prince of the kingdom of Persia resisted me (the angel bringing God’s answer) for 21 days…”

We find an example of the second kind of impediment in 2 Kings 6:15-17, where Elisha’s attendant could not see the awesome “armed forces” God had sent to protect them, until Elisha prayed for his eyes to be opened. Of course, there can be other kinds of impediments to our receiving God’s answers, which have to do with our character. This promise of God answering even before we call was made to God’s servants… not just to anybody, and not to God’s wanna-be bosses. However, although the day has not yet come when His servants will consistently experience, perceive or receive instant answers when we call out to God, He does give us generous tastes of that glorious day.

I have learned that when God said “while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24), this “hearing” implied not only that He would acknowledge the sound of our voices, but also – as the first part of the verse says – He will already have responded. As well, I’ve been understanding a little of how this works. First of all, God knows (by His omniscience) what we need and when we are going to call out to Him for it, so He prepares His response ahead of time, just waiting for us to call. Secondly, God can prepare the answers to our prayers ahead of our asking because is not constrained to operate within time as we are. He created time and operates freely between past, present and future. He doesn’t even have to “time travel” like science fiction characters, because He’s just simultaneously THERE in the present, past and future (by His omnipresence operating not only in space but also in time).

Yesterday morning, in the car on our way to work, Mike was moved to extend our morning devotions by praying for a certain thing to happen for a certain group of people. It was a prayer we expected to be answered over the medium to long term, just because of the unwieldiness of the situation and the resistance that could be mounted against God’s answer. Once the prayer was voiced and agreed on, our minds were focused on work-day routines for the next nine hours. Then we visited a short evening prayer meeting together. There, behold, came (literally arrived unexpectedly) tangible evidence that the requested change was already in the works, and had been before we prayed 🙂 There was even a specific word Mike had used in his prayer, that was whispered back to our spirits in God’s manifested response. Our earnest petition had moved God to let us into one of His little secrets … to give us a peek at the answer He’d been preparing even before we called!