Leading When God Feels Silent

Silence can be more unsettling than a “no,” especially when you’re staring at a high-stakes business decision that affects employees, customers, your family, and your witness. We dig into that moment every Christian leader eventually faces: you pray for direction on hiring, expansion, partnerships, investments, or a crisis response and you get nothing back. No clear sign. No open door. Just quiet. Rather than treating that quiet as abandonment, we reframe it as training, a season where God may be building maturity, faith, and steadiness.

We walk through why uncertainty turns the volume up on emotions and how that pressure can push leaders into costly, fear-based moves. Using the “leadership fog” picture, we explain why high emotion reduces clarity and why wisdom often looks like slowing down, lowering the “high beams,” and refusing to manufacture movement. We connect Scripture to real leadership risk: impatience, pride, and urgency can lead to premature expansion, unhealthy debt, reactive hiring, ethical compromise, and teams that mirror a leader’s anxiety.

Then we lay out a practical biblical decision-making framework you can use immediately: pray with surrender, immerse yourself in God’s Word as the primary filter, seek godly counsel, evaluate motives, discern peace versus pressure, count the cost, and step forward with humility when you must act while staying ready to adjust. You’ll also hear lessons from Abraham and Joseph, plus a simple way to think about “root seasons” where growth is happening even when you cannot see it.

If you want steadier leadership and clearer discernment when God feels silent, listen through and download the decision discernment checklist from our resources page. Subscribe, share this with a Christian business leader you know, and leave a review so more people can find these biblical business principles.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Christian post- Thanks, Kelly, and another great introduction.

When Prayer Meets Silence

Why Silence Can Be Training

Emotions In Leadership Fog

Impatience And Abraham’s Detour

Joseph And Bamboo Root Seasons

Risks Of Acting Without Guidance

A Biblical Decision Checklist

Closing Prayer And Share Request

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Thank you. Welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts, and I am so excited that you have downloaded and are going to listen to this episode. Whether you're a regular listener or this is your first time, I want to do my best, and I'm committed to doing my best to help encourage you, enlighten you, and empower you by what you hear today. You know, each week we try to apply biblical business principles, and the Bible is full of those principles. And we want to apply those biblical business principles to business concepts to help you find true godly success. Now, today I want to give a big shout out to the country of Bangladesh for having so, so many downloads this week. Thank you. Keep it up and ask others to join you there in Bangladesh. You know, we're so excited. We're heard in over 50 countries and downloaded by uh over 50 countries every week. And we're so excited about that. We're humbled by that. Uh, but we truly believe that the mission of Christian Business Concepts is a worldwide mission because we truly believe that God wants to bless Christian businesses and organizations because He knows that they have such an opportunity to reach people for the kingdom of God. And there's a great opportunity for that. And so that's one of the reasons, that's our vision. That's that's what keeps us moving and my team working working every week and and trying to come up with new ideas and thoughts and things that we can include on this podcast to help you find that true godly success. Now, as we get started today, I want to ask you, you know, have you have you ever prayed? Have you ever prayed uh over a major business decision that you had and you heard absolutely nothing? Like no confirmation, you got no warning, you didn't get a clear sign, you just got silence. And and maybe you were asking or praying to God about maybe hiring or firing someone, or maybe expansion or contraction of the business, or maybe a partnership of some sort, or even a separation of partners. Uh, or maybe it's been an investment, you know, that that you're you've been looking at. But instead of clarity, what you get is crickets. Just silence. You don't hear anything. You know, business decisions, whether you're hiring, whether you're expanding, you're pivoting strategies or just handling crises, you know, they carry a very significant consequence for our companies, for our employees, our families, and our witness for Christ. You know, the Bible repeatedly warns against relying solely on our own understanding. In fact, in Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 through 6, you've heard me quote this many times. And that is to that that we are to uh listen to what God says. He actually says uh to lean not to our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge him, and he will direct our path. So it's important that we rely on him, and then that's why it makes it so hard when we try to do that, and we don't hear anything. We get silence. Yet there are seasons when God's voice feels silent. There are seasons like that. I've been through those times where you get no word, no clear word, you get no strong inner prompting by the Holy Spirit. You get no obvious open or closed door. And it's in these moments that we tend to want to rush ahead, or we'll do the opposite and we'll just freeze. We don't do anything. And both of those things can be dangerous. And I like to explore the dangers of deciding um to do something without getting that divine guidance and and also provide a practical biblical framework for making good choices, even when you don't have that clarity, even when you're uncertain. You know, Psalm 62 and 1 says, Truly, my soul silently waits for God. From him comes my salvation. And so it is important to wait on God. And then there's times we have to move out and we have to make a decision. You know, a lot of times, let me say this, a lot of times I always uh align this with our own relationship. If you're a father or a mother and you have children, you know, when they're young, you have to tell them things. You have to give them direction, you have to give them guidance every single day. But as they get older, they learn. They learn what you can expect or what you expect out of them. They learn what's proper behavior, they learn from you, they learn what pleases you, they learn what you've tried to teach them. And so at those moments, you don't have to give them the direction and guidance because you you've taught them. And the same holds true with our Heavenly Father as children. As we begin to mature spiritually, a lot of times God, God is just saying to you, when He's not, when you're looking for that answer, God's saying, look, you know who I am, you know what I like, you know what I expect of my people. And I just need you to share and do those things that you already know to do is right. Because silence is not God's absence. A lot of times it's God's classroom. You know, when you take a final exam, the teacher will say, Okay, begin. And then you'll you're not going to hear another word from her. You can't ask her questions. You can't ask that person questions. You can't, you can't get any guidance, you can't get any direction. You're taking a test. And so sometimes God's silence is because of that. It's because he's preparing us. He's preparing us. A lot of times that silence is because God is building our faith. Um, and sometimes it's because he's already spoken and we're not doing it. You know, one of the things that happens as Christians is we, and this is why it's so important that we stay in the word, that we read the word of God. It's so important that we do that, to study the word of God. Because there's lots of times that God is silent because he's already told you what to do. And you say, Well, I haven't heard God speak to me. I haven't felt that in my inner man or my spirit. I haven't felt God. But a lot of times it's because God's already said it in his word. You know, his word is not something to be taken lightly. He gives us all the guidance and direction that we need. So sometimes he's silent because he's already spoken to us through his word. So today we're talking about discernment when you don't get that clarity. And how do you lead with peace uh even when you're in ambiguity? So there's a lot of emotional pressure that comes when we hear nothing but silence. When God feels silent, these emotions get loud. You know, our anxieties get amplified, uh, fear begins to predict the worst case scenarios in our minds. Uh our pride sometimes rises up and demands we control the situation. Uh there's impatient. And when we get impatient, we get we begin to, if I can say it this way, manufacture movement. We just make it up because we're impatient. You know, James 1 and 20 reminds us that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So realize that emotion is real. God made humans, he made people with emotions. He made us to have emotions. There's nothing wrong with having emotions. The key is that we're not to be controlled by our emotions and we're not to be led by our emotions. But emotion is not authority. You know, Ephesians 4.26 says, be angry and do not sin. So we we know that even through that passage, that God recognizes that we have emotions. We're just not to be controlled by them. You know, I kind of see it this way. You know, it's like when you're you're you're driving in a real dense fog and you put your high beams on, your high beams will make it worse. So what do you do? You put the lights on low beams and you slow down and you begin to focus a lot more. So when you're in a leadership fog, it's the same thing. You've got high emotion, which is the high beams, and that high emotion reduces clarity. You can't see nearly as clear with that high emotion. So you need to slow down and you need to begin to understand that you're not to be controlled by your emotions, and that increases your wisdom. You know, Proverbs 19 and 2 says, desire without knowledge is not good. How much more will hasty feet miss the way? So it's important that we that we understand how powerful the emotions can be. Because if if we get if we're quick, if we get haste, hasty, you know, haste is often just a substitute for faith. It's just a substitute for faith. You know, I think about Abraham when God promised Abraham a lot of descendants, but then after he did that, that was in Genesis chapter 12. And then after that, there's years that go by. Years. He has no child, there's no visible progress. Yet again, in Genesis chapter 15 and verse 5, he says, look toward heaven and number the stars, so shall your offspring be. Now here's a second time, but still he's beginning to become impatient. And so in Genesis chapter 16, what does Abraham do? Abraham produces Ishmael because he couldn't wait for the promise for him and Sarah. And so they have Ishmael by Hagar, which is a bondservant, a woman, that um his wife encourages him to sleep with and to have a child with, and says, then when she bears the child, she can rest upon my knees as if she's given birth to the child. And so they have Ishmael. And so when God feels silent sometimes as us as leaders, there's this temptation to manufacture or make up our own direction, our own clarity. So impatience builds Ishmael's, but trust builds Isaac's. We have to learn to trust God even in the silence. You know, Hebrews 6 and 12 says, through faith and patience we inherit the promises. Faith and patience go together. If you have faith without patience or patience without faith, we get off. We get sidetracked. You know, uh, and when that happens, we can we can expand the business prematurely, or we can partnership with some other business or or or combine businesses out of fear. Uh we begin to take on unhealthy debt, uh, or we just hire somebody reactively, because silence tests whether you trust God's promise for you or your own emotion or sense of urgency, because you're going to trust one of the other. And uh, you know, you look at Joseph. You know, Joseph had a great dream. You know, we read about Joseph in Genesis chapter 37, but he gives him the dream, and then he enters this period of silence. Uh, and and it's in between when he goes to the pit. His brothers put him in a pit and sell him into slavery. So he goes from the pit, he goes to slavery, and then from there he goes to prison. And during that time, there's no new revelation, there's no new word from the Lord, there's nothing. All he has to go on is that first revelation that God gave him. And yet in Genesis chapter 39 and verse 2, God repeats and tells and says in that word, it says, The Lord was with Joseph. So God's presence was there, even though there wasn't any explanation of what he was going through. But the good thing about Joseph is he didn't demand to have some kind of clear direction from God, some kind of clarity. He was just responsible. He tried to be as responsible as he could. You know, Luke 16 and 10 says, one who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much. You know, it it it's kind of like bamboo. Bamboo is a really special plant to me, it just because there's so many things it speaks to me about. But but bamboo will grow roots for years before there's any physical, visible growth to that plant on the top of the soil. But under new, underneath it is growing these massive roots, and it'll do that for years, and then all of a sudden the bamboo begins to grow, and it can grow inches and even feet in one day. In fact, they say that it will grow so fast that you can actually see it with your naked eye. So a lot of times God grows roots in silence, that's what he's doing, before he grows any kind of influ influence in public. So you have hidden years like Joseph did, and and maybe God's using that time to build uh operational skill, or he's he's developing uh a way for you to not be led by your emotions, but to regulate your emotions. He may use that time to refine your character or even prepare your capacity. So what do we do? How do we move forward when when when we don't have this audible direction? Because God does not always speak through voices. Oftentimes God will speak through his word, he speaks through wisdom, he speaks through godly counsel, he speaks through peace, and he speaks through character alignment. You know, the Bible says in Psalms 119 105, it says, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Notice he says, lamp to your feet, not a floodlight for the horizon in front of you. You know, God, a lot of times he just gives enough light for the step in front of us, not for the entire staircase. You know, so here are some dangers when when we don't, when we disregard God's silence and we decide to take it in our own control. You'll have spiritual disconnection and you'll have a loss of peace because you're ignoring God's guidance and it distances us from our source of strength. And that gives us some inner turmoil sometimes. And uh, you know, rather than the peace that passes all understanding, according to Philippians 4.7, we have these decisions we make in haste, and often they create this anxiety and regret. Another thing is reliance on limited human wisdom. You know, Proverbs 14.2 very clearly says, or 14.12 very clearly says there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. You know, our perspective is finite. Without God's input, we can choose paths that appear logical, but they really are going to lead to failure or ethical compromise or maybe some missed kingdom opportunities. You know, so another is that there can be this unintended uh harm to other people. So poor decisions can damage employees and families and partners and even our testimony. And, you know, there's biblical examples that we can see, you know, uh alimelex um moved to Moab without any kind of clear direction and guidance. And it resulted in great loss and decisions in Judges 21, 25, where everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and it just led to chaos. So let me give you some decision-making frameworks that are grounded in the word that can help you through times of silence. Because God's silence doesn't mean he's abandoned you. Often he trusts us to apply this biblical principle, uh biblical principles, biblical wisdom, uh, that the Spirit's generally leading us to. You know, so here's here's some uh practical processes that are rooted in the Word of God. So the first thing you need to do is you need to pause and you need to pray intentionally and specifically. So you you begin this process, you continue this process with fear. Because the first thing you do is ask for wisdom. James 1 and 5 says, if any man like wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth liberally and upbraideth not. So what you have to do is you've got to search your heart. You've got to begin to surrender your agenda, and you've got to ask God for clear wisdom. And then you want to make sure that there's no sin or any blockage that might be hindering you hearing. Because unconfessed ambition or sin or doubt, it it's important to get that out of your life. It hurts you, it hinders you. You know, you need to pray persistently, even if answers aren't coming immediately. And then you want to make sure you immerse yourself in the Word of God. God's Word is the primary way he speaks to people. So you've got to check of the decision that you think of doing if it's going to align with biblical principles. Does it align with integrity and love and justice? You know, ask, does this glorify God? You know, uh use scripture as a lamp to your feet, as we read just a moment ago. But check it through the Word of God, compare it to the Word of God. And if it if it contradicts the Word of God, that's a wrong decision. That should be a red flag that jumps out in front of you that says you're making the wrong decision. The next thing you need to do is you need to seek godly counsel. So you can consult people that you feel like are very mature Christians, or maybe a mature Christian who's a mentor, or even just fellow leaders. You know, uh we see that in Proverbs 11 and 14 and 15 and 22. So look for those who know the Bible, that know scripture, know your character, and avoid isolating yourself because wise counsel often reveals blind spots in your own life. And so I have to do that from time to time too, just like anybody else. Now, another thing that you need to do is you need to evaluate your motives and evaluate the peace in your life. Examine your heart. Are your motives pure or are they driven by pride or fear or greed? You know, Proverbs 16 and 2 says a sense of abiding peace or lack thereof from the Holy Spirit can guide us. So we we need to see that. We we need to recognize the importance of having God's peace in our life. And if there's no clear yes or no, you proceed very cautiously where you sense peace by the Holy Spirit. But you want to examine that, you want to see if that peace is present. And and you know the difference between a natural peace and godly peace. And that's what you're looking for, and that's what you should be sensitive to. And then another thing is you should use wisdom, be prudent in your planning. You gather all the facts, count the cost. You know, Luke 14, 28 through 30 talks about that. Uh, count the cost, think through the options because God often guides you through transformed thinking. Uh, you know, Romans 12 and 2 talks about that, being uh being transformed by the renewing of our minds. You know, the the instincts that are developed, that we developed by walking with Him. It goes back to our parents and them teaching us and leading us. And so as we get older and we get mature as people, we are led by what we've been taught most of the time by our parents. We know what's right, we know what's wrong. And then a lot of times, what you need to do is you need to step out in faith with humility. With humility. You know, when God remains silent after really diligently seeking Him, you make the best decision that you can. If you can't wait, make the best decision that you can and make sure it's aligned with the Word of God and that you have the peace of God as you move forward. And you still continue to pray and acknowledge Him in this decision that you've made. You know, He promises to establish our paths when we acknowledge Him. So be willing to adjust it if in the midst of this decision that you've made, if you begin to get clarity from the Lord, begin to be ready to adjust if you have to adjust. And then you commit the outcome to God. You commit it to Him. After you make the decision and you entrust Him with the results and you obey Him and His Word faithfully, then you just commit all of that to the Lord and you thank Him for it. You thank Him for the positive outcome. And then be willing to hear from Him even continuously. So if you have to adjust things, you can. And then there's the wisdom filter. You know, we talked about James 1 and 5, where he says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God. You know, so you want to ask things like this. Does this align with biblical character? Does it reflect integrity? Does this honor stewardship? Does this honor stewardship? Because wisdom is not emotion. Wisdom will bring alignment. That's what it'll do. And again, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. We've talked just, I spoke about it a minute ago. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding. And then the next is the peace versus pressure. You know, Colossians 3 and 15 says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The word rule implies umpire in the original Greek. Umpire. We know what an umpire does. So peace a lot of times calls safe or out, you know, just like in a ball game. And so that peace is so much uh uh it has so much of an important value when you're in these times because pressure will begin to scream at you of how urgent this is. But peace will whisper to you stability. You know, it's like the storm at the surface, uh, but at the very depth, there's a stillness. You know, discernment happens in that depth, not in the emotional waves. You know, and then you make sure that you've got that uh again, that motive check. You know, uh Warren Buffett said this. He said the stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient. Think about that. The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient. That's why it's so important for us to be patient and to exercise some of these principles in our lives when we're not hearing from the Lord. You know, Ecclesiastes 7 and 8 says the end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Because impatience is expensive. It is absolutely expensive. Um, you know, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, you know, he returned the company to fundamentals when they began to decline. He took them back to the fundamentals, you know, it's kind of like Revelations uh in chapter two, verses four, where it talks about return to your first love. And so he returned back to the fundamentals. So when direction is unclear, return back to your core values. Because when clarity fades, you just go back to your calling, go back to those core values. You know, there's a there's a real cost for ignoring this kind of discernment. Uh, you'll begin to make fear-based decisions, and I encourage you about that because 2 Timothy 1.7 says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear. Because fear will accelerate what wisdom would normally validate. So you don't want to operate in fear, you don't want to base those decisions in fear. It also will cause reactive leadership, you know, and that becomes a person who becomes double-minded. And in James 1 and 8, he tells us that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Unstable leaders create unstable organizations. It creates burnout. Um, Psalms 127 and 2 says, in vain you rise early and stay up late, for he grants sleep to those he loves. If your worth is tied to solving this uncertainty, then you're never going to get any rest. Uh, so you know, it's it's important. It's so important. Uh, you know, anxious leaders produce anxious teams. That's just the way it is. But, you know, when you begin to follow biblical discernment when you don't hear anything and you've got to move forward, when you when you practice patience and wisdom, you're gonna get emotional stability, you're gonna get trust from your team, you're gonna get reduced regret, and you're gonna get long-term strength. And then you're gonna have that peace. Because peace is not the absence of questions, it's the presence of trust. And I want you to go to our website and go to the resources part of the website and download the decision discernment checklist from the website. And it's got like six parts to it, main parts, and then it's got some other things like red flags that you're about to make a hasty decision or benefits of using this checklist. It's got that in there. But it talks about six things. Uh, one is pause the pressure, another is check your motive, third is apply wisdom filters, and then discern peace versus pressure, and then stewardship check, and then final reflection questions. But it is it's just a great checklist to go through if you're going through something right now. It doesn't cost anything. Just go to the website, go to the resources. There's lots of things in the resources, and find this decision discernment checklist. I believe it'll help you. You know, Abraham waited. Joseph had to be a good steward. David was anointed long before he was crowned. Um, you know, silence is often preparation. You know, the strongest moves are often just quiet repositioning moves like you play in chess. You know, delay refines desire a lot of times. Silence sometimes strengthens you. Uh, God develops leaders sometimes in obscurity before visibility. And uh I just I just want to charge you today when God feels silent, just stay faithful, stay rooted in Scripture, seek counsel, slow down those emotions, and extend your timeline and guard your peace. Because sometimes the clearest evidence of God's presence is not a new word. It's the stability that he builds in you while you wait. So be sure to do that because hearing from God is ideal, but his silence sometimes tests our maturity. And the danger lies not in uncertainty itself, but in presuming that we can navigate without him by trusting his word, seeking his wisdom, stepping out humbly. Business, Christian business leaders can make decisions that honor God, protect those that we lead, and advance his kingdom even when the way forward isn't crystal clear. Lord, we come before you right now. Lord, I ask you to forgive us for times that we've leaned on our own understanding. Lord, teach us to trust you fully, to seek your wisdom diligently, and to lead courageously, Lord, in faith. Lord, guard us from emotional decisions. Give us wisdom beyond our own impulses. Lord, anchor us in your word and grant us peace even when we don't have clarity. And Lord, guide our business decisions for your glory, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Well, thank you again for downloading this uh episode of Christian Business Concepts Podcast. And thank you for being a part. And do what you can to help us grow the CBC community by sharing this podcast with four or five other people, uh, or uh by adding a link to this uh on a post on your Facebook or LinkedIn pages. So we appreciate that. We appreciate you helping us grow. And we're out of time this week, but remember that Jesus is Lord and He wants you blessed.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Thank you for tuning in to this week's Christian business concept podcast. Go to Christian Business Commons for more information and resources.