There is this moment in Luke where the angel Gabriel tells Zechariah that “God has heard your prayer.” This is a profound verse in the narrative for a few reasons - but it hits me huge because so many times it seems like God hasn’t heard my prayers.
To be childless in the ANE was to be scorned by society (see Elizabeth’s response in v. 25). Luke makes the note that Zechariah and Elizabeth “walked blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.” In other words, they were not a childless couple because they were living in sin. Surely Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for a child many times - yet received no answer. Here is a priest who it seems God has not listened to - and he and his wife remain childless.
The angel reminds Zechariah that God has heard. He is listening. In this case, He was waiting on His timing.
If John the Baptist would have been born too early he would not have fulfilled the purpose God had for his life - that had been prophesied hundreds of years before his birth!
What appeared as God’s denial of Zechariah’s multiple requests for a child, was really God’s preparation for the one man - in all of history - that would prepare the world for it’s salvation.
There is security in knowing God loves me enough to hear my cry, but loves the world enough to answer it in a way that brings salvation to others.
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