Heart Tracks - Silent God

"How long O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen!" Habakkuk 1:2...."Christians have a hard time believing in a Christianity that allows for God to sometimes come across as a hands-off God." Larry Crabb

The prophet Habakkuk had a deep spiritual struggle. The God he believed in, trusted in, seemed totally absent from the affairs of His chosen people Israel. As the circumstances around him and the nation continued to worsen, his crying out to his God increased in urgency. The response he got was silence. God wasn't speaking, wasn't answering. This conflicted with all he believed. How could his God be like this? Why would He be like this?

Let me say that I believe completely in a good and loving God who is intimately involved with His people. The Bible says He is near, and not far off, and He is. Yet sometimes, even oftentimes, it may not seem so at all. As Crabb says above, this is not a situation that we can easily accept. Especially when we have heard sermon after sermon, teaching after teaching that tells us He has a "wonderful plan for our lives," and that those plans are for good and not evil, that they're meant to give us "a future and a hope." In fact, I have seen that particular Scripture be cited as many a believer's favorite, often claimed as a life promise. How does one who claims that promise relate to a silent, hands-off God? We may know that He behaved so with many in the Bible, but He wouldn't do so with us. We believe He is committed to our well-being, and He is. The problem is, we think we get to define what well being is, and always, we define it as what pleases our flesh. What makes things better and more comfortable in our here and now. His Word says He's an "ever present help in trouble." He is, but in ways beyond our understanding, and that's usually where we stumble. If we can't understand, then we react in a number of negative ways; anger, depression, even rejection. All the while, God is doing something greater, deeper, than we could think.

In response to Habakkuk's question, God answered, "Look at the nations and be amazed. Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn't believe even if someone told you about it." That something was a work of grace much deeper in the life of the nation and of Habakkuk himself than he could possibly grasp in that moment. It is His way. It is how He seeks to mature us, deepen us. In the devotional "Steams In The Desert," a woman dreamed of talking with Jesus. In the dream, she saw three women kneeling in prayer. The first He knelt with, held closely, and spent much time with. The second He did much the same, but for a lesser time. The last He seemed to pass by with almost no touch. She thought He must be greatly displeased with the last, and very pleased with the other two. His response was that wasn't so at all. The first was weak in her faith and needed His intimate attention to go on. The second was stronger, but still needed His assurance. The last had broken through into a depth of trust in Him that didn't need such constant assurance. She knew His goodness and trusted that He would work it into her life. She depended not on the sense of His nearness, but in her trust of His promise of it. Can we?

There will be times when He is silent, when He seems to have taken His hands completely away from our lives, needs, and situations. We will have questions that we will have no answers to. He will have one for us; will we trust Him in the silence? Will we trust Him in our lack of understanding? Will we trust Him in the dark? Will we? Will you? In His timing, God broke His silence with Habakkuk. So will He do with us. Can we be still and know that He's God, or, does our demand for immediate gratification rule the day? Do we grow in our faith during the silence, or withdraw from Him as we accuse Him of not caring? Will we still love and trust a silent God?

Blessings,
Pastor O