It happens to every single one of us at some point or another in our walk with God. It happens for many reasons, or maybe for no reason at all, and for some of us it happens when we least expect it. It’s when God stops talking. Absolute silence. And you wonder if heaven dried up, or if you have gone deaf, or more even frightening, if God has forgotten you.
There have been moments in my two years here in Chile, when God was so silent, and the circumstances were so difficult that I felt like God had dropped me off at the end of a dirt road and was waving down a semi-truck to run me over. And to top it off, all I got from heaven when I cried out in desperation was silence. Not a word. Now, to be fair to God, I was extremely busy screaming at him, so part of his silence might have been because I wouldn’t give him a moment to talk.
However, all the reasons aside, I felt alone and abandoned and scared that my life would never make sense again and that God didn’t care. All I wanted was a word, a little sign that all would be well, that he was still around. The problem is, when it comes to needing signs, God’s not the greatest performer. He doesn’t ask how high, when I say jump.
There is this really old story, in a very old book called Job, where we can learn a whole lot about God and mystery and people and evil and sorrow if we want to. It’s interesting because God’s pretty quiet for most of that book. He doesn’t say much, and then right out of nowhere, out of the wind and sorrow and desolation of Job’s life – Job gets invited to a meeting. He is told to brace himself like a man. And then. God talks.
In the middle of God talking, Job actually asks him to please stop talking because it’s so hard to hear. But God keeps on going. He had a lot of words for our man Job. At the end of God’s dissertation, Job responds: He says he didn’t understand before. He says that before, he thought he knew God, but now he realizes he never even had a clue. He’d only heard about him before. It’s like the most beautiful passage in all of scripture to me. Maybe not all of scripture, but it’s mesmerzing nonetheless, because it holds one of the greatest secrets to suffering and sorrow and loss in the whole history of literature.
Here’s the secret: God will use all of our pain and suffering and terrible losses as the means to grow deep and life-giving intimacy with Him, if we’re willing. This is remarkable to consider.
One of the other things we learn is that when someone else is suffering, it would be in our best interest to shut up and just sit with them. Not offer a bunch of stupid responses about how everything happens for a reason and about how God doesn’t give us more than we can handle and about how God will make it all come right. And we really shouldn’t blame the person who is suffering. I’d think twice about doing that.
When we read Job, we realize that we really don’t see everything there is to see and we don’t understand everything. We see in part. And we know in part. This is because we’re human. And the more willing we are to recognize and embrace our humanity, the more in line with God’s heart we become.
The other thing we learn, is that in times of suffering and times when God is silent, he’s up to something. He’s up to something really big. And the stakes are usually pretty high. And in the end, he invites us into a deeper relationship with him, but sometimes he has to do some deconstruction. A lot of the time he’s trying to break me out of my little tiny walls and my little tiny answers and all my little tiny solutions – in order to help me see that he’s a whole lot bigger and whole lot better and just plain more than I ever imagined.
While I was sitting at the end of my dirt road waiting for the semi-truck to run me over, I read Job. Over and over. Afterwards, I looked round about me, stopped yelling at God, and came to the startling conclusion that God doesn’t owe me an explanation for anything.
So, I bowed my head, kneeled down, and resolved to follow him even when he’s silent, even when he doesn’t do what I want, or expect, or even need him to do, and even when everything looks bleak and grim and there are no easy answers. And then, I invited him into the mess and asked him to help me make something of it, to bring order and life into the places that seemed lost and ruined. And then, my heart went quiet and still and I knew I was finally getting somewhere. I was getting lower, to be exact. And you know what he says about getting lower …
I agree that if someone is suffering you shouldn’t blame that person. I have no right to judge others or to play God. I also have no right to give advice.
Everything does happen for a reason and God is the only one who knows the reason. God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. If I am overwhelmed by life and I ask God why? Then I’m the one that put the extra bread in my basket. God has already given me my daily bread. So why am I adding more?
Should I tell someone these things? No. However, I can share my experience, strength and hope with someone who is suffering. If share a part of my life of when I suffered and how I can now look at that part of my life with gratitude. And how I can now see that God was there and that He was at work in my life. Then who knows? Maybe I have done some good for that individual. Maybe God used me to plant a seed of thought. And who knows? Maybe God used me to speak to them. God speaks to us through others. And I can hear God if I am willing to listen.
Hearing God and seeing God in my life are directly proportional to my Spiritual condition. God is always here. He never stops talking and never quits revealing Himself to me. Whether it’s the lyrics to a song on the radio or a friend sharing a part of their life with me. Or maybe it’s a billboard on the side of the road. God never stops and it’s up to me to be willing to look and listen.
If I can’t hear or see God then somewhere inside me I have fear and fear will block me from Him. I can pray to God and ask Him to remove the fear that has been blocking me from Him. He will help me but I must be willing no matter what it takes. I can’t have any fear of what it might entail and I can’t have any reservations. I should never question Him. Thy will be done, not mine.
I apologize for the long comment. I just wanted to share how I hear and see God and why sometimes I can’t see or hear Him too. This is what I’ve come to understand for myself and maybe you can relate. When in doubt. This quote always helps me.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
I deeply appreciate that you took the time to comment and read my blog. And I’m glad that you recognize how God is talking to you. And that you respect that it’s a personal discovery, one that each person has to figure out in their own way in our own time.
Much Love, Sterling!
Tina
A few years ago, in living waters, I was introduced to a new concept… The idea of being able to stand up straight in our relationships with others, rather than bending toward them.
For decades, God had been silent about very difficult family situations and family members that I loved intensely. No matter how much I prayed, nothing changed. Nothing. In fact, often things got worse and I wondered where God was at in my darker moments, because He seemed non-existant.
Then one day, I remembered being part of the process of my daughter learning to walk. Lots of falling and getting up, while learning how to stand straight and move forward at the same time. I stood nearby, watchful and protective, but there were things that my daughter needed to do for herself, and I couldn’t do that learning for her.
It seems to me that God does the same for us, because He knows we are ready to “stand straight” in some new area of our life. And He gives us the freedom to move forward by letting go of our hands and stepping into the background, while quietly cheering us on. And to me, that can feel like abandonment.
I believe, from my own experience, that when the pain of life becomes crushing, it becomes impossible to hear God’s voice. The storm of pain thunders so loudly, that little else can be heard.
So, I try to stay focused on the times when He made himself known. Those are still rough days, but I know He will come back, because that is what He has done in the past.
And to me, it seems like it is all part of the larger picture of learning how to stand up straight in Christ. Part of a difficult and complex spiritual growth process that we all must go through.
Thanks for writing so fearlessly! Much love to you!
Your comment reminds me of a quote in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis.
“You must have often wondered why the enemy (God) does not make more use of his power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree he chooses or at any moment. But you now see that the irresistible and indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of the scheme forbids him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as his felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For his ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it – the creatures are to be one with him, but yet be themselves; merely to cancel them or assimilate them will not serve… Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from conscious experience, all supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up in its own legs- to carry out from will alone duties which have lots all relish… He cannot temp to virus as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand… Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seeks to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
I read this quote often and find great encouragement in it – it has a resounding ring of truth that helps me.
Thank you for reading and much love to you…
Tina
I’m thankful someone on Twitter led me to this piece. Wonderful. I recall reading somewhere how in a study of the lives of saints a characteristic for many was a dark season that had to be endured, but in the end there was a realization that in the dark season God had granted them to truly live by faith. For when he seems absent and yet we trust that our redeemer lives this is living by faith in a dimension that is difficult but pleases God. He is pleased not in our pain even if we think he wants to run over us with a truck, but in the proving of our faith. Of course it is different learning this in our soul and spirit and not just our intellect. God bless. Thanks for the blog.
Oh thank you so much for taking the time to write.
What a thoughtful and very helpful comment.
He is pleased with the proving of our faith…
This resonates so deeply with me.
Once again. Thank you.
Tina
Tina,
I don’t visit your blog nearly as often as I should. Thank-you for writing in such a deep, personal way which never fails to make me feel human. I love that you don’t gloss anything over. The best of writers-in my mind- are the ones who get down to the nitty-gritty and face everyday challenges head-on. You are one of those writers.
Much love from WA,
Kayla