Silence Without Absence

As I enter this time of prayer, I repeat the words of Psalm 42:5, slowly, several times, making them my prayer to God:

‘Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.’

Pause and repeat

‘God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children … While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well- trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God’ (Heb. 12:7, 10–11 MSG).

‘The Bible leaves us in no doubt at all that when God is silent, He is not absent—even if that’s the way it feels … Martin Luther argued that God withdraws and falls silent in order to draw us into the deeper relationship with Him that is only possible when we move beyond merely outward experiences and purely rational understanding. If Luther is right, then the silence and unknowing of Holy Saturday are essential to growing deeper in our relationship with God. The silence of God is intentional. It is one of the great disciplines He puts on His children “that we may share in his holiness” (Heb. 12:10)’*

How can I really know that God is present, even when He is silent? Is there any evidence, visible to me or to anyone that loves me, that He may be refining and maturing me through the difficult things I’m having to endure?

Pause and reflect

Father, I want to thrive, not just survive, in this difficult season. I want to emerge from it stronger, wiser, and somehow looking a lot more like You.

Pause and pray

As I bring this time with God to a close, I pray a prayer of David for God to search his heart (Psalm 139:23–24):

Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

Amen.

*Pete Greig, God on Mute, David C Cook, (Colorado Springs, 2020), p213