When God "Stops" Speaking

 

* WHEN GOD "STOPS" SPEAKING

There are times in the life of every Christian, when even though you are walking by faith and there is no known sin in your life, God seems far away. Have you ever been in a place where you felt God had abandoned you? Have you ever gone to the Scriptures and walked away feeling discouraged, unhelped, and terribly alone? Have you ever read the Bible and it’s just words on a page with little or no meaning or impact for you? Have you ever prayed fervently and continuously and it feels as if your prayers are not going any higher than the ceiling in your bedroom; all you hear is silence – a silence so deafening it drowns out every thought but the one that says God isn’t listening?

Have you ever wondered why God is so silent? Certainly, it isn’t because God has nothing to say and certainly it isn’t because we’ve attained such a high spiritual level that we don’t need any further instruction. So why the silent treatment?

The fact is, God often seems to be silent during those times of our lives when we’re dealing with the pressures of life and going through a trial, and we need Him to speak to us the most ……our boss announces we’re fired, our spouse tells us they’re leaving, an accident alters our life, or someone we love receives a frightening medical diagnosis. God’s silence can be more troublesome than the trial or circumstance we’re going through. It can be difficult to understand because it seems He’s indifferent to our pain and misery. 

I thought perhaps if we could figure out why God was “silent” in times past, maybe we could figure out why God is silent in our own life as well. Job was a man who was well acquainted with God’s silence in his pain and suffering; his cries for God’s help and relief were only met by God’s deafening silence. Job was the most righteous man of his day – perfect and upright, the Bible says, yet he suffered a series of staggering losses in a matter of hours. He lost everything – his children, his wealth, his servants, his reputation and his friends. Then God permitted Satan to afflict Job physically, and when his wife became irritated that Job accepted the tragedies that had befallen them, she tried to get him to speak against God. But Job, who spent every day at the ragged edge of death, replied to his embittered wife, “…Shall we accept good from God and not trouble.” 

Eventually, however, Job reached a point of despair. The tragedies he had experienced, as terrible as they were, is not what caused him the greatest distress. This man of towering strength who had coped with sickness, death, and catastrophic loss soon faced a circumstance that threatened to overwhelm him. * He was unable to feel the presence of God. More importantly, God was silent when Job needed to hear from him and get some answers

He expresses his anguish in Job 23:8-9 NLT: “I go east, but He is not there. I go west, but I cannot find Him. 9 I do not see him in the north, for He is hidden. I look to the south, but He is concealed.” Job wanted to hear from God. He wanted God to tell him why he was suffering. When we’re caught in the middle of a trial, it’s often difficult to know where God is in the trial. Has HE caused this to happen? Or has the Devil been allowed access to me? More than that, what am I supposed to do in this trial? Does God want me to YIELD to the circumstances, or does He want me to RESIST them? Yet often God won’t tell us even that!

Job tells God in Job 30:20-22 NIV “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. you turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind you toss me about in the storm.” For the first 37 chapters of the book of Job, his desperate cries for God's help were met only by God's silence. 

The Lord didn’t choose to answer Job’s questions as to why he suddenly lost his sons and daughters, his wealth, and his health. There was no ‘there, there Job, I know it’s been bad, I’m here to comfort you.’ Instead we see a God who says "Who are you Job to question me?" 

Often, God doesn’t reveal everything to us, either. And the truth is, He doesn’t have to. He is God. He is our Creator; we are the created. God doesn’t owe us an explanation. He hasn’t called us to fit all life’s pieces together and what they mean, but to remain faithful and obedient even when we don’t understand all the difficulties and trials we have to deal with, even when He’s silent in the face of all our questions.

The book of Job reveals that Job’s suffering was not because he was a backslider or out of the will of God. On the contrary, it was because, “There is none like him in the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil….” God rarely does things for one singular reason. One purpose was to answer the blasphemous accusations of Satan and put Satan to shame by proving that a man can serve God even though dreadful things happen, things we don’t deserve, things that seem to be senseless. Job’s difficulties are proof that you don’t have to be in sin to experience suffering, and they’re not necessarily a sign of God’s judgment.

Deuteronomy 8:2 NIV: “Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.” Another purpose of Job’s suffering was to test his character and show Job what was in his heart; to see if he would trust God and remain faithful in the midst of tragic and perplexing situations.

The life of Job was recorded for our benefit; to show us that as righteous and honorable as any man is, we’re not exempt from pain and suffering; it shows us there’s a spiritual war going on that we don’t see with our eyes and even those who are obeying the will of God may still have to suffer. I believe what we often miss is that God also effectively shows us through Job’s story that if we endure to the end, our sufferings are nothing in comparison to what He has in store for us.

James 5:12 NKJ: “Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.” Job was rewarded for enduring and trusting in God as his seemingly endless suffering continued on and on: He went so far as to say ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” (Job 13:15) 

God generously rewarded Job’s unwavering faith: He restored his health, and blessed him with twice as much wealth as he had before. He gave him another family of seven sons and three daughters, the same number of children he had before. God didn’t double his children because they weren’t really lost; they’ll be with him in eternity. And finally, God blessed Job with long life; He lived 140 years after this and saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.

2 Corinthians 4:17 NIV says, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” Paul isn’t downplaying our problems as if they don’t matter. The Lord sympathizes when we deal with chronic pain that worsens by the day, a wayward son or daughter who shows no signs of turning around, a broken relationship that resists every attempt at healing, a mountain of financial debt that seems insurmountable, or a dead-end job that makes us feel underpaid and unappreciated. 

Apostle Paul is trying to focus our minds on eternity. Job received an earthly reward for his faithfulness, but we are promised something far more magnificent than an earthly reward: If we endure our trials to the end and don’t despair, when Jesus appears in the clouds, we will be rewarded with a heavenly reward; all grief and sorrow, pain and suffering will end forever. James 1:12 NLT tells us “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” 

Toward the end of the book of Job, God broke His silence and spoke but God never answered Job’s question of why he was going through such adversities and emotional pain. Instead, He tells Job to, “Gird up your loins ….in contemporary speech that means pull up your diapers….I’m going to question you, not the other way around.” (Job 38:3) Then He proceeds to remind Job that He’s the Creator and Sustainer of life and He knows what He’s doing. In other words, God told Job, “I am God and you are not!