How to Find God When God is Silent

Here is the truth, God is with you, in the silence. He is COMMUNICATING with you in the silence. He has a plan for you, in the silence. He even has an immeasurable limitless amount of LOVE and compassion for you, in the silence.

However the real question is, what do we do when God is silent? What do we do when we pray and speak to Him and we get nothing back? When there is no immediate answer to the challenges or anxieties we are facing in the moment?

Well did you know that silence is actually a medium of communication for God? One that is found in multiple different Books of The Holy Bible? We see silence as a form of communication in the scriptures, specifically in the Book of Job (Pronounced Jōbe - like globe).

If you haven't read Job, I highly recommend it, but to give you the short-hand version: Job was a successful Man of God who by all measure had everything. A beautiful life, wife, children, home, and lots of money. He was devout and even God called him "Blameless" in the texts.

This blameless, successful, devout man of God, suddenly goes through all these terrible hardships and trials at the hands of Satan. So bad in fact, that Job loses ALMOST everything. Job's family, his home, his wealth, and even his health, are all gone in an instant at the hands of the enemy.

As he spirals into despair and agony, the worst thing imaginable happens to Job. God stops speaking, he goes silent.

In this moment Job could have rebuked and cursed God and no one would have blamed him. His friends figured Job had sinned so bad that God hated him and Job's own wife seeing their lives in ruin thought it best to rebuke God and give up his life to save some form of dignity. Yet Job DID NOT rebuke God. Instead Job held onto the God that he knew from scriptures. A Just God. A Fair God. A Loving God who makes all things right.

Yet despite not openly rebuking God during his bout of silence, that didn't stop Job from being angry with God, with being confused, with questioning why this was happening to him. Job knew he was a righteous man, that he did good in his life, and he was not about to let this happen without pleading his case to God.

See, sometimes we think God wants this sanitized version of us. Or that we don't DESERVE to question God and his motives for our lives. What this ultimately does is create a distance between us and God, it muddies our relationship with Him, and prevents us from truly opening up and hearing Him and His plans for us!

When God finally does speak to Job and break the silence it's through this amazingly divine and magnificent moment that leaves Job stunned and humbled. The lessons God had been trying to show Job had been there in front of him the whole time, through the silence.

God explains the lessons to Job in the form of questions, pointing to the fact that His ways are beyond human comprehension, that He is still with us even in times of silence, and that His answers are not always immediate.

Then, God gives everything back to Job and more, doubling his previous wealth and life, giving Job his health back to normal, and Job goes on to live an even better life than before and with the new revelation of God that was found after waiting through that long stretch of silence.

See even through silence God can transform us. Even when the light is dim, and the world seems dark, God can bring us into an even brighter and more magnificent new light than we had ever imagined. It's when we try to force God out of silence, when we try to do things on our terms, and our timing rather than God's, that's where we create distance from God and miss out on seeing the real plans God had in store for us in those quiet moments.

I've lived with chronic pain and illness for the last 3 years. I remember during one of my worst days, struggling to walk, being in constant pain, anxiety being at an all time high, I prayed to God to ask for healing. God has only spoken directly to me a handful of times in my life. I remember the exact words God spoke to me as I drove my car down the highway in tears, begging for pain to be removed from body:

"You will receive everything back and more."

In the moment, I believed God. No matter how little sense it made to me, I believed Him. Now, three years later, my body is cured of my most serious illness, I have a wife, a home, a great job, I get to eat what I want (even when I shouldn't) and I have had the anxiety and depression that clouded my soul for decades removed completely. I gained it all back, and more than I could have asked for.

Speak to God tonight, ask him for what you want, what you need, ask him for things that seem impossible, ask him to heal parts of you you felt were unhealable. Give everything to God in this prayer, if he doesn't respond, question God. Get angry, get upset, show God all of you, without hesitation or fear, let God know your deepest thoughts and feelings. God WILL respond, He WILL break His silence, just be prepared for it to be on His Perfect Timing!

Amen!