A Listening God
Recently I read a very touching and inspiring book called Fire Road. It's the autobiography of Kim Phuc, known as the "Napalm Girl," who was famously photographed running from a napalm bomb in 1972 during the Vietnam War.
Her book was incredible, and while I encourage you to read it yourself, I wanted to share some insights from her writing that deeply blessed me.
The Journey from False Religion to True Faith
In June 1972, the war was in full flow, and a nine-year old Kim was rushed away from her home in the middle of the night when Viet Cong troops took over her family’s home. Kim’s mom did what she thought was best, which was to take her children to the temple in which their family worshipped.
CaoDai was a religion claiming all faiths had the same divine origin and manifested the same truth. As Kim describes it, "you might say that we were equal-opportunity worshipers, giving any and every God/god a shot." They believed "you are god, and god is you," and Kim's family participated in all the temple's rituals.
Kim later came to know the one true God, as we shall see, and I love what she wrote here about the day when her mother rushed the family to the temple to escape the Viet Cong. She writes: “Had she known she had access to a listening God that night, I know she would have called out in prayer.”
The Transformative Power of a Personal God
As I read that, I stopped. I wondered: do we truly recognize that we have a listening God? Do we approach Him with the confidence that He hears our prayers?
I want to encourage you to pray today. If your faith is in the true God - Father, Son and Spirit - you can know that He is a listening God who cherishes your prayers.
Kim discovered that her family's false gods couldn't hear. And this reminds me of Psalm 115 which says: "Why do the nations say, 'Where is their God?' Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him. But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk" (Psalm 115:2-7 NIV11)
Our God is not a deaf idol, but a caring Father who attends to His children's faithful prayers.
May we, like Kim Phuc, abandon all idols and trust fully in the God who listens.
