The Sound of Silence

When we cry out to God sometimes, we often hear silence, not that we are expecting to hear a voice. We often don’t get the response we are looking for to our prayers and we sometimes wonder if God is sleeping. All we hear is the sound of silence.  Why is He so silent?

We pray fervently. We pray sincerely. We follow the prescription on how to pray. We take Him at his Word; “ask and you shall receive,” yet it appears as if God does not hear us sometimes, especially in times of trouble. We often wonder about the silence of God amid trouble.

We have seen and heard of stalwarts in the faith who called on God repeatedly in their affliction and all they received was silence and perceivably no action. Some even died without getting an answer when they prayed about their sicknesses.

Whole churches have prayed and fasted day after day. Some of us in the faith have been involved in such practices and God never seems to answer in ‘our time’.

It seems it’s when we need Him most that He’s not there. Job needed God badly; the worst was happening to him and who did he turn to – God?

Job 30:20…I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not. ²¹ Thou art become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.

David felt that way, too. Psalms 22:1-2 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer.

Psalm 83:1 A Song, a Psalm of Asaph. O God, do not remain quiet; Do not be silent and, O God, do not be still. David pleas again in Psalm 109:1O God of my praise, do not be silent.

If you believe the silence of God is affecting you alone, you better think again. Job and David weren’t the only ones.

Isaiah asks 64:12 Will You restrain Yourself at these things, O Lord? Will You keep silent and afflict us beyond measure?

 

Habakkuk 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?

Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Jeremiah 15:18, asks.

We can glean from the scriptures that God remains silent in many instances. This has not changed. Today, He seems to remain silent as well, especially when evil persists.

Jesus says John the Baptist was the greatest born among men. Yet when he was imprisoned, Jesus did not rescue Him, although He could. Why couldn’t He stop that sword that cut his head off?

How can we understand God’s silence?

To get a clearer understanding of why God is silent or seems silent maybe for most of the time, we must accept His sovereignty, meaning that He is in charge, and He knows what He is doing. We cannot paint Him as having lost control of evil or unable to govern or be in charge of His creation.

His thoughts are not our thoughts, and He does not respond to situations like we do. Even when Jesus was on Earth on trial or being tempted by the devil, He didn’t react the way we would have. Jesus didn’t show off His powers; He used them humbly to help the sick, poor, and oppressed. Oftentimes, He avoided confrontations; He went a different route.

You see we don’t know the mind of God or understand His great, infinite wisdom and power, and that nothing is impossible for Him. When we say nothing is impossible for him it means that. Why? How so?

God defies the norm. He’s above and beyond the norm, hence His silence to us may not be silence after all. His silence to us may not be the way He functions, but our infiniteness limits us to just seeing and interpreting things through human eyes. God is not governed by time as we do.

One thing we know is that even when it appears that God is silent, something is being worked out for the greater good. God’s word cannot lie when he says, and we know, that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, Romans 8:28. He says all things and God means that – everything no matter the circumstance.

Sometimes the silence of God means other things. It could very well mean the answer comes later or not right now, not tomorrow or next week, or next month. Sometimes, it calls for patience. Romans 8:18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Perhaps God is not silent after all!