Aug 28 - Psalm 28:1

O Lord ...

if you are silent to me,

I shall be like those

who go down to the Pit.

Psalm 28:1

Do you ever feel like your prayers go no further than the ceiling? That God is not listening ... not speaking ... not caring?

Psalm 28 compares each moment of God's (perceived) silence to Hell itself.

·       Hell is the literal absence of God. In one sense, it's a literal place that is void of God (and of light and hope and forgiveness and joy) to be sure.

·       But hell is also any circumstance where we experience the absence of peace and purpose, hope and joy.

And the silence of God is hell ... or at least it feels like it.

The New Living Translation renders the futility of this verse and this experience like this: "For if you are silent, I might as well give up and die." (Have you ever been there?!)

There are two primary reasons for God to be silent.

1.      The first is sin. People all the time ask God to bless their circumstances ... when their situation is not godly. For example, we all hope for the best for a nice young couple that's living together. But while God “hopes the best” for them too, He will likely be “silent” as long as they're mocking his command for covenantal marriage.

Indeed, God can't bless what he doesn't condone. So silence is often a symptom of sin.

But because sin is a major reason for God's silence, guilt often swallows us when we perceive a silence from heaven. "What did I do wrong, God? Why do you hate me?"

God's silence -- even while he is rejecting sin -- is out of love ... not anger.

Sin hurts us -- often progressively kills us – and this true even when we seem to be enjoying a sin temporarily. Therefore, to heal us, God will often do whatever if takes -- including the hellishness of his silence -- to woo us back.

Love! ("Thank you, God, for drawing us toward your continual best.")

2.      But ... lest we wallow in total guilt and grief over God's silence, there's another purpose to heaven's quietness; Pruning and Discipline.

Ask any grand prayer warrior and they'll tell you of seasons of silence.

When we begin to pray, we are like children. Our methods are sincere but elementary. Therefore, to grow us, God-the-wise-teacher has to occasionally raise the level of challenge.

Silence is one of those methods designed to produce growth. His silence forces prayer pupils to mine the depths of their present prayer techniques and to try (even in desperation) new-to-them techniques like solitude, fasting, and study.

God's silence often feels like hell. But it's really out of love. Whether he's turning us from sin or deepening our relationship with him, God's silence is designed to bless us.

Thank him, therefore for his occasional quietness. And use it as an occasion to listen more deeply. His whispers are usually deeper and more rewarding than his shouts.

In Christ's Love,

a guy who needs hearing aids

... and the greatest aids to hearing God

are patience, persistence, and confession