When God is Silent

“And yet it is true that this God, who desires to give Himself to you, will often conceal himself from you – from you the very one who seeks Him.” (Guyon)

If you have been seeking God for very long, you have experienced the above statement on at least a few occasions.  Why does a God who loves us so intensely seem to close a deaf ear to our prayers, especially in times of great need?  There are at least three reasons.

First, God wants us to be on a track of continually pursuing Him.  If you are a typical Christian then, like me, you have a tendency to get spiritually lazy when things are going great. We may have our daily devotions and shoot up a few prayers during the day, but we lack passion in our pursuit of Him. We may not say it, but we sometimes live like, “God I am ok now, but I promise you will be the first one I call on.”

Every committed follower of Jesus is quick to call on the Lord when things begin to get out of control, and it should be that way.  However, God’s greater desire for us is to pursue Him even when times are good.  God created us for fellowship with Him.  It is the instinctive nature of a child of God to pursue a deeper fellowship with the Father.  So when we sense those times when God seems to turn a deaf ear to our prayers it could be a sign that we need to examine our passion for the pursuit.

I also believe it is a test of our faith.  Do you really believe, even when you can’t feel His presence? As a faithful follower of Jesus our faith is continually tested in numerous ways.  The deeper our walk the greater the test.  It’s like the old story about the man who was chased by a bear.  In his attempt to outrun the bear he ran over a cliff and on the way down grabbed onto a limb.  While hanging there hundreds of feet from the valley floor, he called out to God to help him.  God said, “Do you trust me? The man quickly declared, “Yes, I believe and fully trust you.” Then God said,” Let go of the limb.”

Sometimes trusting God when we don’t see a logical way out is like the above story.  We must trust God and be willing to let go of the limb.  We must trust Him because of who He is and because of His proven faithfulness in the past.  Each time we come to one of those moments and we trust God, even though our emotions are all over the place, our faith is increased.  How does our faith increase? Because in the end God gives us what we really need, even though it is not what we prayed for. Faith must be tested in order to grow and have real value.  We are reminded “…that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1:3)   

Finally, during times of dryness we learn something about ourselves.  When we turn to pursuing God during times of spiritual dryness, we begin to see ourselves as we really are.  We quickly realize how our whole world is revolving around ourselves.  We see our unforgiveness, our quickness to set someone straight, our self-protection, and all those things that point to a lack of brokenness.

I clearly remember military boot camp. The best way to describe it was they took all my rights away. I couldn’t go and come as I pleased. I couldn’t talk unless spoken to. I had to go to bed and get up when they said, even when it meant getting up in the middle of the night just to march until daybreak. I had to march in the rain and snow, and crawl through mud.  It wasn’t fair; why was I treated so badly, and subjected to such dangerous circumstances?  I didn’t sign up for this! I just wanted to join the military.  To top it all off, they wouldn’t let me do things my way!

It wasn’t until the end of boot camp that I realized their overall purpose. They were breaking us down so they could make productive soldiers out of us.  They were breaking down my self-sufficient, undisciplined will.  Their goal was to make me into someone who followed orders without question and was ready for conflict in a moment’s notice.  Wow, what a proud moment when our barracks came together as a unit.

In a similar manner, that’s what God is doing in our life. He allows us to experience trouble we can’t escape, people we love whom we can’t fix, and failures and disappointments we think we don’t deserve.  In addition to all of that, there are attacks of loneliness and despair, all because He wants to break our stubborn self-will.  He wants us to give up on our self-sufficiency and fully cast ourselves on Him and Him alone.  

Life in the Lord’s army is a paradox.  To receive, you must first give.  To save your life, you must give it away to others.  But the rewards are heavenly; there is rest for the soul, joy (inner peace), and daily fellowship with the Creator of the universe.

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:17)