As I looked at the young woman slumped over in her seat, I felt such compassion and pity. She was beautiful even in her tear stained state. Reaching out my hand I touched her head. Gradually, she lifted her face towards me and I was struck by the depth of her emotion. “Annie, can I pray for you?” I quietly asked. She nodded and began to pour out her heart. “I just want to be a mature Christian,” she sobbed. “I never do anything right. When will I ever please the Lord?” Compassion overwhelmed me as I realized she could not see the big picture. All she could see was the one failure she had experienced that day, and that failure was overwhelming and clouding her view of who she was in Christ.

Many of us need a heart change just as Annie did that day. As I prayed for her, I realized how easily we tend to focus on our weakness and fail to look at God’s strength. We see our failures and are blind to the fact that He is at work within us and that He will complete the good work He began in us! “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phil 1:6 (NASU)

God has a way of bringing light into darkness and birthing hope in place of despair. During the time of Moses, we see a God who loved His people Israel. He knew they were in cruel bondage to the Egyptians and His heart broke for them. He appeared to Moses in the midst of a burning bush causing Moses to turn aside and see this great sight. God spoke to him and said, “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Ex. 3:7-8 (NKJV)

Imagine how the people felt when they knew, the cry of their heart had been heard by Almighty God. They were going to be set free! “So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.” Exodus 4:31 (NKJV) Just as God heard the cry of the children of Israel, He hears our cry. He knows when we are hurting and He longs to comfort us.