You can respond to the silence of
God in two ways. One response is for you to go into depression, a sense of
guilt, and self-condemnation. The other response is for you to have an
expectation that God is about to bring you to a deeper knowledge of Himself.
These responses are as different as night and day.—Henry Blackaby
*
Perhaps it's not silence we’re
encountering while we seek God, but rather a pregnant pause—a prompting to
engage in personal reflection so that the deepest of answers, the most profound
of responses, can be given and received.—James Emery White
*
“It came to pass after a while,
that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”4
Week after week, with unfaltering
and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched the dwindling brook; often tempted to
stagger through unbelief, but refusing to allow his circumstances to come
between himself and God. Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we
sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air, but faith puts God
between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him. And so the
dwindling brook became a silver thread; and the silver thread stood presently
in pools at the foot of the largest boulders; and the pools shrank; the birds
fled; the wild creatures of field and forest came no more to drink; the brook
was dry. Only then to his patient and unwavering spirit, “the word of the Lord
came, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath.”
Most of us would have gotten
anxious and worn with planning long before that. We should have ceased our
songs as soon as the streamlet caroled less musically over its rocky bed; and
with harps swinging on the willows, we should have paced to and fro upon the
withering grass, lost in pensive thought. And probably, long ere the brook was
dry, we should have devised some plan, and asking God's blessing on it, would
have started off elsewhere.
God often does extricate us,
because His mercy endureth forever, but if we had
only waited first to see the unfolding of His plans, we should never have found
ourselves landed in such an inextricable labyrinth; and we should never have
been compelled to retrace our steps with so many tears of shame. Wait,
patiently wait!—F. B. Meyer
*
I try to see the dry period as a
time of waiting. After all, I gladly wait for loved ones when their planes are
delayed, wait on hold for computer help lines, wait in line for a concert I
want to attend. Waiting need not kill time; it uses time, in anticipation of
something to come.
Sometimes I come to God out of
sheer determination of will, which may seem inauthentic. When I do so, however,
I need not put on a mask. God already knows the state of my soul. I am not
telling God anything new, but I am bearing witness to my love for God by
praying even when I don’t feel like it. I express my underlying faith simply by
showing up.
When I am tempted to complain
about God’s lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to
complain about my lack of presence. I reserve a few minutes a day for God, but
how many times do I drown out or ignore the quiet voice that speaks to my
conscience and my life? “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock,” have become
familiar words from Revelation, often stretched into an evangelistic message.
But Jesus addressed those words to a church full of believers. How many times
have I failed to hear the soft knock on the door and thus missed God’s
invitation?—Philip Yancey5
*
Quite a few people seem to have
trials and battles because they don’t feel close to Jesus. They think, “I must
not be close to the Lord, because I just don’t feel close to Him!”
The Bible makes it very clear
that we are to walk by faith, not sight. If we start trusting or relying too
much on our feelings as an indicator of how well we’re doing spiritually, we’re
going to be very unstable. We would be continually tossed to and fro by every
wind of feeling that happens to come along.6 We’d never know how we were going to
be doing tomorrow, as that would be determined by how we feel when we get up in
the morning.
Regardless of how we may happen
to feel, if we love the Lord and are walking by faith and obeying His Word,
then we know that our relationship with the Lord is firm. And we certainly know
that His love for us is unchangeable, unwavering. He says, “I have loved thee
with an everlasting love.” “Though the mountains should depart and the hills be
removed, My kindness shall not depart from thee.” “I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee!”—Maria Fontaine