Daily Manna · Day 299 · October 26
Eyes and Ears Toward You
“For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”
Sometimes prayer feels like calling up a dark stairwell. The words go up, and nothing comes back down. After a while you begin to wonder whether anyone was ever listening at the other end.
Peter answers that fear by quoting Psalm 34, and he does not quote only the comfortable half. First he writes, "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers." Then, in the same sentence, he adds, "but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil." It is one God paying one kind of close attention, and that attention points two ways. Being watched that closely is either good news or bad news, depending on which way you are facing.
Peter does not leave "the righteous" vague, either. The verses just before this tell you what he means. He speaks of "Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing," and he says that a person who wants to see good days should "refrain his tongue from evil" and "seek peace, and ensue it," which means to go after peace and keep after it. So the righteousness Peter has in mind is very ordinary. It is how you have been treating the people who annoy you.
So take this verse as an invitation. You are welcome to bring God the thing you have not been bringing Him. Bring the habit you know about, the one you have quietly kept apart from your prayers. Peter's words suggest that God never kept it apart on His end. His ears are open, and He is inviting you to come all the way in.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 299 is Set Before You (Deuteronomy 30:19).