When God Seems Silent

I don’t know about you, but one of the most fearful times in my life is when God seems silent. The silence creates a vacuum of self-doubt and self-condemnation. It is a breeding ground for spiritual cancer. His silence generally is more about my not hearing, rather than Him not talking. More times than not, I don’t want to hear because I have my desires, and it is not His desire. Sometimes, it is a time of contemplation in which I need to consider all that He has said and weigh it against my desires.

There are many passages, especially in the Old Testament, that speak of God’s silence. Habakkuk laments, “Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?” Job questioned, “When He keeps quiet, who then can condemn?” David called out to God, “For if You are silent to me, I will become like those who go down to the pit.” Asaph begged, “O God, do not remain quiet; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be still.”

A time of silence from God is not a time when nothing is happening. It is time to dig deeper to understand our relationship with God and how it can be better. It is a time of self-examination. God does not stop talking; he changes tone, texture, and volume. Great speakers use changes in pitch, cadence, and volume to get the audience’s attention. Sometimes they shout because of the need for urgency. Sometimes they whisper to indicate intimacy and compassion. God is not limited to our tricks in communications; he is multi-modal. He has many channels.

 Ecclesiastes 9:17, “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.”

God speaks through the Spirit that we inherited as children of God. He speaks through scripture and wise words of Christian friends and authors. He repeats His message until we acknowledge hearing it. When God is silent, it is we who have gone deaf. It is we who pay more attention to the voices in our heads than the word of God. Our self-talk has more credibility than God’s word. Self-talk is not condemnation; it is the natural result of living in a fallen world.

Isaiah 55:8-11, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Our knowledge and vision are inferior to God’s; we craft solutions based on what we know or perceive. Those solutions drive our desire. God’s answer may be outside of our expectations or even our understanding. Jonah didn’t want salvation for those he saw as evil; he wanted condemnation. God saw it differently, so Jonah ran. How often do we run because what we want is not what we know God wants?

For most of us, the more significant issue is timing. I want what I want, and I want it now. I am in spiritual, emotional, or physical pain, and I want it to go away. But, there may be a lesson to be learned first. There may be a heart to be softened. There might be a soul to be saved. God knows our story; he wrote it. He knows what we are going through, and He knows what we can handle. His view is a view of eternity.

When God seems silent, remember:

Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

2 Peter 3:8, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Lamentations 3:25-26, “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him”

Know that God does not waste anything. He is always working on our behalf for our salvation. He longs to be in a deep, meaningful relationship with us. That can not happen in a vacuum. When God seems silent, be patient, look into your own heart for clues, seek direction from His Word, and wait. Do not wait passively as someone expecting a gift; wait actively as someone expecting a revelation.

Perceived silence from God is many times the birth of great movements. It is a time of renewal and growth. Do not fear it; strive to understand it. You will see that God is not silent; he may have just changed style to get us to listen closer.

C.S. Lewis said, “though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not.”