The Whispering Gallery

Hi, and welcome to another daily encouragement from the Our Daily Bread devotional. Our reading, titled The Whispering Gallery, was written by Elisa Morgan. In the towering dome of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, visitors can climb 259 steps to access The Whispering Gallery. There you can whisper and be heard by another person anywhere along the circular walkway, even across the enormous abyss nearly 100 feet away.

Engineers explain this anomaly as a result of the spherical shape of the dome and the low-intensity sound waves of a whisper. How we long to be confident that God hears our agonized whispers. The Psalms are filled with testimonies that He hears us—our cries, prayers, and whispers. David writes, In my distress I called to the Lord, I cried to my God for help. Over and over again he and other psalmists plead, Hear my prayer, my voice, my groans.

Sometimes the expression is more of a whispered, Hear me, where the heart meditated and the spirit asked. In answer to these pleas, the psalmist, like David in Psalm 18 verse 6, revealed that God is listening. From his temple he heard my voice, my cry came before him, into his ears.

Since the actual temple wasn't yet built, might David have been referring to God listening in his heavenly dwelling? From his very own Whispering Gallery, in the dome of the heavens above the earth, God bends to our deepest murmurs, even our whispers, and listens. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Psalm 18 verses 1-6 and 16-19. I love you, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.

My God is my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I have been saved from my enemies. The cords of death entangled me, the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

The cords of the grave coiled around me, the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the Lord, I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice, my cry came before him, into his ears.

And now verses 16-19. He reached down from on high and took hold of me. He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place.

He rescued me because he delighted in me. Let's pray. Dear God, we know that you hear us, whether we're alone or whether we're surrounded by people, when we cry out to you, you listen to our prayers and you bring peace in the midst of our storms. Help us to rely on you and to trust in you even when we may have to wait a little longer to have our prayers answered. It's in your name we pray, Amen.