When God is Silent

You call a number. The phone rings for five seconds and then disconnects. You hit the redial button. Line is dead; cellphone has been turned off. Recipient is in a meeting and can’t take your call. Maybe. Hours later, you try again. Same response. This goes on for days. Suddenly, a weird thought creeps into your mind. “You are being snubbed!” What’s the matter? Your mental scanner rummages through past files. How did you offend the fellow who is now avoiding you?

Our human wiring is more experiential than it is innate. We are not born cynics, we learn it. Whenever we encounter enigmatic reactions from those we care deeply about, we often turn the flashlight on ourselves. Failure on our part has breached the other person’s trust. Our unreliability is about to cost us a relationship. If only we had been more discerning, more considerate…But it doesn’t stop there. In a lawsuit, one of two parties wins or loses; not both. When self-evaluation doesn’t produce a guilty verdict, we blame the other party. In other words, if you didn’t cause a breach of trust, then the other fellow has adopted a snobbish attitude!

Silence Says More Than Words

Relationships thrive on communication. Health of any relationship is directly proportional to the health of its communication. Strained communication is the earliest sign of relational troubles. Problem is, we don’t always know what causes communication breakdown. But without a point of reference, where do we begin reparations? You cannot cure an undiagnosable disorder!

When I was a youth, my pastor often recited a simile to explain the value of genuine friends. In Prairielands, said he, there dwelt three oxen who were best of buddies. Tough and strong, their combined force defied any threat from beasts of prey. Until a sly hyena hatched a plot to conquer them. He befriended them! Before long, Hyena took Black Bull aside and whispered a ‘secret’ into his ear. “You need to be wary of Red Bull and Grey Bull. I am privy to their plans to gore you through with their horns. Every time you see them rubbing their horns against fenceposts, they are preparing to attack you.” Hyena repeated this line to Grey Bull and Red Bull. It wasn’t long until the three buddies split and kept to themselves. Their synergy wrecked, the bulls were taken down, one at a time!

Communication is more powerful than we imagine. Favorably or adversely. We often fail to recognize that silence is a form of communication, just as potent as words and gestures. Hence, when you choose to ignore someone, be sure your response communicates intended messages.

Heaven’s Silence: Earth’s Distress

It’s easy to blame your antagonist for a strained relationship. When God is the antagonist, it’s a whole different ballgame. What do you do when He is silent? When God seems distant or indifferent, any of several scenarios can play out. You either become better or bitter for it!

When God rejected Cain’s sacrifice, the man became bitter and slew his brother. By practicing partiality, Jacob caused his sons to feel slighted. They sought to kill the boy he preferred. Joseph ended up a slave in Egypt. We can go ad nauseam along these lines. We are all familiar with the enigma of this situation.

Acceptance is a valid human craving. Sense of belonging is as much a basic human need as food or shelter. We want to be loved and cherished by those who matter to us. Above all, we seek to be reassured of God’s constant care. How much care can be detected from God’s silence is paradoxical. Please don’t miss the point we’re trying to get across.

God doesn’t always talk to us. But neither does your best buddy at the peak of your intimacy. When silence abounds, what you know about the other person keeps you going. When God seems distant and indifferent, we can still read His Word and reassure ourselves. We can still meditate on His promises and be encouraged. David in his troubles did that, and so can you!

Dark Night of the Soul

Before God destroyed the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham made a passionate plea for their deliverance. His nephew lived there. Abram was an elderly man when God called him to leave his people and country. His young nephew decided to come along. Abraham was morally responsible for his safety. In fact, Lot got captured in a territorial warfare and Abraham went after large gangs of raiders to rescue him. So, when God revealed imminent destruction of Lot’s residential city, Abraham made great intercessions. You can read the account in Genesis eighteen. Let’s  see what happened the following morning.

²⁷Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he stood before the Lord. ²⁸ Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace. ~Genesis 19:27, 28 (MEV)

Picture yourself as Abraham. Last evening you pleaded with God to spare the cities. Your nephew, his wife, his children, and all their stuff are in there. You are deeply concerned about them. So you wake up early the next morning to see how things went. A putrefying smell greets you at the tent door. You run to the edge of the cliff. Smoke is billowing from the valley below like a giant furnace! What of all your prayers yesterday? “God, You promised to spare the cities—if, if, if… Dear God, You didn’t find ten righteous people? Why didn’t I simply ask for Lot’s family to be delivered? Oh God, You know all things; You knew why I pleaded… But God, why did You let me waste my breath with all that intercession when the verdict was already sealed…?”

Can you relate to the old man’s turmoil? Did someone die for whose recovery you prayed earnestly?

How Abraham proceeded from there would depend on what he knew about God. Nobody escaped to bring word back to the friend of God. Lot didn’t send a tweet or a quick sms to let his uncle know he’d been spared. They did not have cellphones back then…

Silence is Bad News

Of all the paradoxes I have ever read in Holy Scripture, none baffles me more than Joseph’s account. None brings tears to my eyes as freely as Joseph’s reunion to his family. From the moment young hooligans brought home a bloodied coat of Rachel’s son, to the moment guilt-laden adult men returned with royal wagons to carry Israel to Egypt at the invitation of the prime minister, God did not inform Jacob that Joseph was still alive! Seventeen years of silence! Why? Why was God silent on such vital news? From what I’ve read about Jacob, he’d have gone down to Egypt to fetch his son, effectively interfering with divine strategy. God is more concerned about our destiny than about the rollercoaster of our human emotions.

Spoiler alert: God does not always tell us what is going on!

Silence can be harmful if you don’t know how to deal with it. Satan packs the void with all manner of hideous ogres. He fills the missing data with doubts and fear. “If God cares, why isn’t He talking to you? Why isn’t He reassuring you?  You missed His leading. You’ve messed so badly and God is very angry with you. You can as well quit, it’s no use pressing on with a faith that is no longer producing results!”

It was during God’s silence that Abram and Sarai conceived Ishmael, a perennial distress to the house of Israel. It was during God’s silence that King Saul usurped the role of a priest to offer a sacrifice, thereby sealing his fate as king of Israel (1 Sam 13:5-14). It was during God’s silence that he consulted a witch for direction, prompting his untimely death (1 Samuel 28). It was during God’s silence that Jesus sweat petals of blood at Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-46).

Never underrate the power of silence. God wants you to learn to trust Him even when you don’t sense His Presence. When there is no clear leading, wait in prayer. Wait in faith. Wait in Bible study. Never try to create your own compass. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding!

Have you ever seen the movie ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’, or its sequel ‘Christiana’? They are adapted from John Bunyan’s immortal book by the same title. At a very tempting point, Greateheart, (who represents the Holy Spirit) tells the sojourners, “Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light.”  Christian pilgrimage is a walk of faith, not of sight nor of feelings. Faith is built on God’s Word, not men’s opinions. It’s not about emotional goosebumps. When heavenly signals seem weak or intermittent, review God’s promises in holy Scripture.

¹⁰Who among you fears Adonai?
Who obeys what his servant says?
Even when he walks in the dark,
without any light,
he will trust in Adonai’s reputation
and rely on his God.
¹¹ But all of you who are lighting fires
and arming yourselves with firebrands:
go, walk in the flame of your own fire,
among the firebrands you lit!
From my hands this [fate] awaits you:
you will lie down in torment. ~Isaiah 50: 10, 11 (CJB)