It’s Time to Do Some Yelling

You and I have had this dialogue before.

We get tired of praying the same prayers.

We’ve made our prayer journals. Together, we’ve prayed for our kids. But some days, when we don’t see the progress we’re looking for in those we love, praying can be down right discouraging!

Maybe it’s time to start yelling for your girl. 

You might be very familiar with Jeremiah 29:12 (the new study I’m doing Just RISE UP! directed me there this morning). I decided to dig in instead of rolling over it this verse I’ve read many times.

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” Jeremiah 29:12 (NIV) 

I find it way to easy to skim over verses I have heard over and over and over again. Do you struggle with the same? My Hebrew-Greek study Bible helps me get past this complacency I easily fall into. I began to see just how God defines “call”…and I was surprised.

When I think of the word call, I think of the action I take when telling Madi it’s time for dinner. Depending on the level of her music at the time, I’ll choose to simply raise my voice a bit…or truly yell if needed.

In the original language this part of the Bible was written in, call can mean: to cry out; to name; to proclaim, pronounce, preach. “Essentially denotes the enunciation of a specific message which is usually addressed to a specific recipient and intended to elicit a specific response.”

Here’s where I was surprised to find what the Bible was telling me to do to God: yell at God. My Bible says:  “The term signifies shouting, calling loudly, in order to get someone’s attention to initiate contact. Sometimes it indicates sustained calling.”  Yep – yell.

This verse starts out “Then you will call…”

Then? When?

In the verses prior, God is talking about rescuing His people from the captivity of the Babylonians. Some of us definitely have our kids caught in the enemy’s captivity. We need God to plan and execute a rescue.

I want and need God to hear me and move, to perform the plans for me and my family for good, to give us a hope and a future, to reach our fullest potential in Him as He mentions in verse 11. According to this definition of “call” in Jeremiah 29:12, these plans are set into motion when I call. When I cry out, preach, shout loudly for a long time to God. When I pray which means to plead, on the behalf of someone else, He will listen. He will hear, giving His undivided attention and understand my need.

And He will deliver.

It sounds to me that desperate needs require desperate prayers. Prayers that involve some shouting, yelling and calling out to God.

There…you’ve been given permission, actually encouraged, to go on and doing some yelling today, friend!

 

Need some help knowing what to “yell”? Here are some prayer prompts you can shout to God for your girl to become the girl He wants; a girl living out her fullest potential in Him! Just click here for this free download.

 

Lynn

4 Comments

  1. Lynn, I have read these verse a thousand times and claimed Jeremiah 29:11 for my children. Being a southern girl, call has the connotation of a friendly encounter sort-of like ice tea on the back porch or seeing your neighbor outside and calling to her to talk across the fence. That’s how I talk with God. I am in a discouraging season with my teenager right now over study habits, turning in homework, and understanding the assignments – 4 weeks into the school year. He struggles with ADHD and if he didn’t have to do them – he’d make straight A’s. But he does have to. I am doing some yelling this am… for wisdom and to see movement for my gifted, talented young man to reach his highest potential and for his teachers to nurture him! Thank you for this new insight and for not rolling over and digging in … and for encouraging us battle weary moms to start yelling!

  2. Susan Gruener says:

    Hi Lynn (and another Susan above) It’s ‘Susan’ night!
    I loved this! I know God well enough after 48 years of praying to Him, that He can take anything we can ‘yell’ at Him. Although I haven’t thought of actually being loud to God, because I knows he hears our whispers as well as what’s on our miinds…but because you read what ‘call’ means in the Hebrew…I’m going to start doing some yelling of my own! We need God to act for our girls, for our children, for our grandchildren and for this wicked, broken, brutal world…
    Thanks Lynn!

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