Trusting in the silence

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Hebrews 11:11

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding."

Proverbs 3:5

We all go through times when God appears silent. It seems as if He hasn't anything comforting to share.  No guidance. Not even a suggestion or a preference is shared. It is just silent.

After a few weeks, we start to get snippy with the kids. Little things that used to mean nothing now grate along our last good, but raw, nerve.

Our spouse can’t manage to get a single thing right, no matter how hard they try, because their ESP isn’t working correctly and that just annoys us to no end.

We start to compare our friends walk with God to ours, and find ours lacking. And a little envy begins.

God is silent and then we get angry that He is letting this happen.

But is he?

God’s Word never changes. It is a Living Word. He shares it with us every time we choose to open it. He speaks it every time we seek to apply it. He encourages and comforts through it.

Sometimes we forget that and allow the world to speak a little louder than God’s silence. Food starts to offer the comfort we seek. That flirty comment from the man at the gas station begins to feed our need to feel special and noticed. The guard comes off our mouth, our thoughts and our actions. Nothing is our fault and no one understands.

We use the term silent, but God never stops speaking to us. We may just not be listening in the right place. We might not feel that warm-fuzzy that we seek. All to often we say that God is silent and want him to speak, when really we just want him to make us feel better, take away the work of the struggle, or make life easier. But sometimes God speaks by saying: You say you have faith in me. Let’s try it out a little. What will you do if you have to trust me to be there, instead of knowing I am there.

Knowing and trusting are two different things. And if we always know God is there, we can’t trust him to be. That might seem to not make sense because we know that God is always there, right?

But do we really act like it? He is there even when things aren’t going our way. When we are struggling with something. When our feelings get hurt. When we get sick. When our spouse hurts us and our kids walk away. But if God isn’t loudly speaking to our heart, do we begin to doubt that he is really there this time? It is those times when God “goes silent” that he is watching to see if we will continue to stretch and search for him, even when it seems he isn’t there.

If you feel like God isn’t speaking to you right now, consider what you are listening for.  God might be asking you to grow your faith while you are asking him to hand you comfort wrapped in a pretty bow. If this is the case, search him out.  Trust that He will continue to guide and lead you through his Word; through those prayers that seem to bounce off the ceiling (they don’t by the way. He hears every word.) He will be found in the praise music you sing a little louder, and the friend that says she stopped by just to chat.

God isn’t silent. God is growing you. Trust him enough to have a little faith.