10152022 Divine Silence

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings in the name of our faithful and ever-present God. No matter what our perceptions or doubts, God is always with us. We humans have short memories, and we require constant reassurances. Think of what happens naturally with us when we don’t hear those kinds of words. Wives can become despondent and insecure if their husbands don’t state their love. Children grow into adults with social foibles and “disorders” when their fathers don’t state their love. Church members (and perhaps missionaries?) become alienated or discouraged when no one tells them that they are remembered, loved, and prayed for. If we don’t hear reassuring words repeated often enough, we have a tendency to forget that they are true.

If the pain and discouragement happen regarding other people’s communication (or lack thereof), might they not also happen regarding God’s communication? What happens in our spirits when we go through a time of divine silence? I have heard the words “When God is silent,” and I briefly searched the internet to see if this is a song, a book, a sermon, etc. Well, I don’t know the source of those words in my history, but they are very common – books and sermons by multiple authors. In other words, it is a common theme that man has explored. No one wants to feel that he has lost the attention of God. David expressed: “Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit” (Psalm 28:1).

Job expressed words of perceived alienation from God. “Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment” (Job 19:7). “Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!” (Job 23:3). Both of these chapters are filled with similar sentiments. Job’s impression was that God was not listening and not responding. He could not find God in his situation.

Think about Joseph. As a young man, he received divinely-sent dreams that revealed to him a wonderful future. Then a series of bad things happened. How long was it until Joseph again had divine revelation? How long did he wait before God’s blessings and fulfillment broke out upon him? Did those years of slavery and imprisonment stretch out in interminable silence?

What about Esther? God is not even mentioned in the book of Esther. Here is a young lady, orphaned and carried from her homeland. She is thrust into an unusual position of importance, but her life is nevertheless in danger. Doubly so – as one of the condemned Jews and as someone who must approach the king without an invitation. She had only the instructions of her uncle. Where was the divine instruction or reassurance? Where was the “Thus saith the LORD?” Without a message from God, she knew that she might perish.

Or the Jews in general? Between the Old and New Testaments, there was a void of 400 years. As far as we know, there were no prophets, no revelations, no new guidance. Just silence. How many times throughout history, as they have faced persecutions and attempted annihilation, must the Jews have wondered, Where is God? How often did they cry out those words in the Nazi concentration camps?

Like these times of silence existed for these ones in the past, sometimes we also face deep personal times of seeming silence. Our hearts cry out with the same questions. Where is God? Why doesn’t He answer me? Why does my communication with Him seem so challenged? Why do I feel like I’m not getting through to Him? Why does it seem that He is not touching my heart?

In times of silence, we must remember that although God might not be talking, He is acting. Through those excruciating months of Job’s life, God was silent, but He was not inactive. God was overseeing. God was reining Satan in. God was giving inspiration to Elihu. God was preparing His own speech. God was planning Job’s healing, restoration, comfort, and renewed blessing.

Joseph might not have been receiving new dreams, but God was working. He was overseeing global weather patterns to create a massive famine. He was working in the hearts of Joseph’s father and brothers. He was putting public servants in disgrace with the pharaoh. He was giving dreams to other people and allowing Joseph to interpret.

Esther heard no divine voice, but God was at work. He was weighting dice so that they rolled to the most advantageous numbers. He was curtailing (and eventually reversing) the plans of wicked Hamaan. He was giving Esther extraordinary favor. He was giving a king insomnia and placing the right reading material on the top of the stack, opened to the right page.

The Jews waited in silence, but God was working. He was overseeing international politics to create just the right setting in which His Son would be born. He was causing leaders to make unwelcome taxations with inconvenient ramifications. He was blessing an old, infertile couple with a son who would serve as a precursor to His greatest message. When the Jews were suffering intensely in the 1940s, apparently abandoned by God and the world, God was at work. He raised up those “righteous among the nations” who intervened on the Jews’ behalf. He directed world powers to move toward restoration of a Jewish homeland. He used unpleasant circumstances to make Jews welcome and flock to that homeland.

Not only is God always working, but in reality, He is never silent, because He speaks every time we open His Word. God gave us the Bible so that His words would always be available to us. All we have to do is read them and remember them. Our feelings of discouragement and abandonment might be strong, but feelings never change facts. Ron Hamilton’s song “Trust His Word” says something like this: “Trust His Word. All God’s promises are true. Trust His Word. When your pathway disappears and your joy gives way to tears, in the midst of doubts and fears, trust His Word.”

What does His Word say that is always true, regardless of our tears, doubts, and fears? What is God’s truth to us when we hear no voice and see no path? “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). “For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee” (Isaiah 43:2). In the midst of Job’s chapter 19 anguish, he anchors himself with verses 25-26, and in chapter 23, he clings to verse 10.

Where is God? He is right here with me, whether I feel it or not. Why doesn’t He hear my prayers? He is hearing and is appropriately answering, whether I see it or not. Why isn’t He doing anything? He is “hard” at work, planning and preparing even though I do not see it yet. Why does my spirit seem dry, like I’m not communing with God? “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” is true, whether I feel a warmth in my spirit or not.

As we believe God is working during the silence, and as we seek to hear His timeless and constant words through the pages of Scripture, and as we accept in faith what we do not feel in our spirt, God will again minister to us. We might have to wait for that special time, but William Cowper captured great and precious truth, when he wrote his hymn “Sometimes a Light Surprises.” “Sometimes a light surprises/ The Christian while he sings;/ It is the Lord who rises/ With healing in His wings;/ When comforts are declining,/ He grants the soul again/ A season of clear shining,/ To cheer it after rain.”

If you get a chance, look up the full text of that hymn. I apologize that this letter is so lengthy, but it is the message that God gave me, and I trust it will be a special blessing to someone. In particular, if you are in a silent spell, I pray that God will grant you that “season of clear shining” by ministering to your heart in a special way. God bless.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt

member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA