Keep not silence, O God; hold not Your peace or be still, O God.
Psalm 83:1 (AMPC)
I’ve thought many times, I wish God would come and sit here with me and just tell me what He wants me to do! I am sure you have thought something similar at some time in your life. It seems to me that it would make things a lot easier, but it appears that God has different ideas, because that is not what He chooses to do. If He doesn’t want to do things our way, then we will have to learn how to do them His way. He wants us to trust Him even when He is silent!
Do you ever feel that God has packed up, moved far away, and left no forwarding address? When we don’t see God doing anything in our life, and we don’t hear Him saying anything, we may feel as if we are groping around in the dark, trying to find our way through a maze. Although these times challenge our faith, they can teach us an important lesson: to trust God even when He is silent. Just because He is silent does not mean that He isn’t doing anything.
God was silent for four hundred years between the closing of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament, but there were things going on during that time that actually prepared the people for the coming of the Messiah. The Bible says that in the fullness of time Jesus was born! (See Galatians 4:4.) God always has a proper time for things. When He is ready, He will speak, and until He does, it is our job to keep listening and waiting with expectancy.
Let’s consider what God’s Word tells us about Elijah in 1 Kings 17:1. Elijah prophesied to the people that there would be no rain for several years, and sure enough, it did not rain for three years and six months. The people suffered from a severe drought, and it is quite likely that Elijah was not very popular during that time. I would imagine that he wanted to hear something new from God about the drought, but according to 1 Kings 18:1 (NIV), “after a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah,” giving him another instruction. This time he was to announce that rain was coming, and it did.
There are other examples of God being silent with those who trusted Him. He was silent with Job and with Abraham. The reading of Job chapter 23 gives clear insight into the desperation that Job felt at not being able to find God or hear from Him. Let’s look at a few of the verses:
Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat!
Job 23:3 (AMPC)
Behold, I go forward [and to the east], but He is not there; I go backward [and to the west], but I cannot perceive Him;
On the left hand [and to the north] where He works [I seek Him], but I cannot behold Him; He turns Himself to the right hand [and to the south], but I cannot see Him.
Job 23:8–9 (AMPC)
Now listen to Job’s faith speak in the midst of this terrible silence from God:
But He knows the way that I take [He has concern for it, appreciates, and pays attention to it]. When He has tried me, I shall come forth as refined gold [pure and luminous].
Job 23:10 (AMPC)
Even though Job could not see God or hear Him, he stated that he believed God was watching over him and was concerned about him. He spoke of “when” God would deliver him, not “if” God would deliver him!
Abraham dealt with the silence of God regarding the surrender of his only son, Isaac. God had instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son as a way of testing his faithfulness and obedience, and He waited until the last possible second to speak to Abraham, telling him not to harm Isaac. But up until that moment, Abraham only had raw faith to go by. He was so convinced of the faithfulness of God, he felt that even if he did slay Isaac, God would raise him from the dead (see Genesis 22:1–12).
I have not been through anything as extreme as what Job or Abraham describes, but I have had long periods of silence between times of hearing from God. These are difficult times when we are tempted to think that God isn’t with us or that He doesn’t care about us. We may also think that we have lost our ability to hear from God.
I pressured myself for many years, taking the responsibility of “trying” to hear from God, but finally I realized that if God wanted to say something to me, He had many ways of making sure I knew what it was. Instead of trying to hear from God and feeling frustrated when you don’t, trust that when God wants to speak to you, He will make Himself clearly known.
Instead of being afraid that you won’t hear from God, believe you will hear from Him. If God knows that you truly want to hear His voice and that you are prepared to follow it, He will not fail to speak when the time is right. In the fullness of time, or at the appointed time, God spoke to Elijah again, and He will also speak to you again!
Paul taught the believers to stand fast in the liberties they had been given, and not to be ensnared again in a yoke of bondage (see Galatians 5:1). Hang on to what you have and don’t allow a time of silence from God to discourage and weaken your faith.
There is a great deal that I don’t know, but there is also a great deal that I do know, and I am actively doing all that I know to do at the current time in my life. I am frequently asked, “What is next for your ministry?” Since I cannot foretell the future, I don’t usually know the answer to that. If we have something planned, I can report that, but, more often than not, I am simply doing what most of us do, and that is living each day as it comes and trusting God. What is next will be a surprise to me as well as to others.
Another question I am asked by many people is, “What is God saying to you?” I am especially asked that question at the first of each year, as if because the page turned on the calendar I should now have a new revelation from God. Even though January 1 may be viewed as an opportunity to talk about doing new things, God doesn’t always have some special new word just because it is the first day of the year. God is not a jukebox filled with options we can request from Him at certain times. He speaks when He chooses and as He chooses, and when He is silent, we keep doing what we know to do.
Dave and I were laughing with some friends recently because the woman said that when she and her husband first got married, he was excessively spiritual and he assigned her a certain amount of Bible reading each day. When he returned home from his job as an associate pastor at a local church, one of the first things he said to her was, “What did God show you today?” I can only imagine the type of pressure that put on her and how she must have felt like a failure if she had to say, “Nothing.” It is funny now, but I doubt it was very funny at the time. Don’t pressure yourself, or anyone else, to come up with a “word from God,” unless you want to open a door for the devil to deceive you.
Perhaps He is not giving you any specific instructions because He trusts you to make the right decision. It is an error to believe that God will tell us each move we are to make. That kind of relationship is for parents and babies, not for mature sons and daughters. One of my sons said this morning, “I’ll come by this afternoon, Mom.” I have not sent him a list of instructions on exactly how I expect him to behave when he comes into the house. I trust him, and I trust that he knows my heart and will act accordingly. For example, he won’t come in and leave the door open behind him. He won’t park his car in a place that would prevent anyone else from getting their car out of the garage. He won’t bring someone in the house with him that I don’t know. I don’t need to tell him those things, because he already knows my heart.
God gives us freedom to make decisions according to His Word and what we know of His will and character. I recently heard a well-known man of God say that God had never given him any specific instructions at any important intersection in his life. He found that at times when he had really important decisions to make, as he prayed for God’s direction, he was led to step out and try various things until he had peace about the right thing. We must remember that even though God may seem to us to be silent, He is always communicating with us in a variety of ways—through His Word, peace, wisdom, our experience from the past, and other things.
If God isn’t telling you exactly what you should do, then be confident that He trusts you to make the right decisions! It is impossible to drive a parked car, so there are times when we must put our lives in drive and start inching forward before we will find out if we are going in the right direction or not.
We often hear people talk about how God has dealt with them and assume that God should deal with us the same way, but He doesn’t. I have read books by people who make it sound as if God sits on the edge of their bed giving them daily instructions on what they are to do. “God said” and “God told me” are their favorite terms. I use those terms too, and perhaps more than I should, because there are times when people misunderstand what we mean. We can be continually led and guided by God, but that doesn’t mean that we are getting a play-by-play media presentation of what we are to do all day long, each day.
I know people who seem to hear specifics more frequently from God than I do, but I have learned not to compare myself with anyone. If we do, then we can never be content in our own relationship with God. We are individuals, and God deals with us in different ways for different reasons, and we should trust that. When you are comfortable with a person, it is possible to sit in a room and not say a word. Some days it must be enough for us just to believe that God is with us!
We need to express ourselves, and God wants to assure us that we can talk to Him about anything as often as we want or need to. The psalmist David certainly poured his heart out to God, and he did so with great honesty. Most of us have times when we just want someone to talk to. You may not care much what they have to say; you just want someone to listen and keep your secrets, and God is always good at that.
Continuing to listen lets God know that your heart is open to Him and that you are waiting for Him. I ask God very often if He has anything He wants to say to me, and I take a few minutes to just be quiet. It is my way of obeying what He said to us in Proverbs:
In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.
Proverbs 3:6 (AMPC)
Even if I hear nothing when I ask that question, I still believe that my listening is valuable. I have found that God may be silent when I ask the question, but then He will direct my circumstances in such a way that it is very clear to me that He was involved in guiding the outcome of my situation.
David sometimes asked God to examine him to see if anything was in his heart that was not right (see Psalm 26:2, 139:23–24). This is a bold step, but one that clearly proves whether or not a person truly wants God’s will, no matter what it might be.
Is it possible there is something blocking us from hearing God clearly? A sin, a wrong attitude, or a misunderstanding on how to hear from God could be hindering us. We don’t need to be afraid to know the truth, because it will set us free. When God is silent, we may not be doing anything wrong, but there is no harm in finding out.
Although God was silent with Job for a long time, He did eventually answer him, but when He did, He had some things to say that Job probably wasn’t expecting. Out of frustration, Job eventually told God that he didn’t deserve the treatment he was getting, and more or less demanded some answers. Job indicated that he thought God was unjust in His treatment of him. He was not aware of the spiritual warfare that was going on behind the scenes, just as we are often not aware of what is going on behind the scenes. The Bible says that Job repented, so he obviously had sinned.
Although he was a righteous man in every way when his trials began, Job eventually assumed that God was not dealing with him properly (see Job 42:3–6). His righteousness turned into a type of self-righteousness that is dangerous for any of us to have. Job definitely went through a very hard time (certainly more than anyone we know of), but in the end, he said that he now knew God much better than he had previously (see Job 42:5). Also, God gave him back double everything he had lost and blessed him tremendously (see Job 42:10–17).
The journey was hard, but it turned out good in the end! This is the same thing we can expect. Remember: What Satan means for harm, God intends for good (see Genesis 50:20).