The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
When God Feels Silent but Isn’t Still
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Hey there, welcome back to the Healthy Church Death Podcast. Or if this is your first time, welcome to the Healthy Church Step Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over ChemistryStacking.com, and you're listening to the Healthy Church Death Podcast. We're here every weekday, Monday through Friday. And this week we're doing a special five-part series. We started yesterday, so you can go back and listen to part one yesterday. A five-part series on Thanksgiving. And this one today is for the leader that's worn out, prayed up, and hearing nothing but silence. We're going to talk about what God might be doing, even if it feels when He's doing, even if it feels like He's doing absolutely nothing. All right, so what do you do when heaven goes? When the prayers get more and more desperate, when the clarity just never seems to come, when you're doing all the right things, it seems like you're leading, you're giving, you're serving, you're praying, you're being faithful, and yet God seems like He's a million miles away. Today we're going to talk about how to reframe that silence on this Thanksgiving week. Mo so many of us equate God's movement with noise. We want the big yes, we want the open door, we want the fireworks, we want the confirmation email, the fleece, the neon sign. But if we look at scripture, it really does tell a different story. For example, if we go to 1 Kings 19, it's a story about Elijah. Okay. Elijah had just had his mountain experience, fire from heaven, prophets of Baal, the whole nine yards, the whole deal. And then fears it sin and he runs and he hides in a cave and he feels forgotten. And God shows up. Okay. God shows up, but not in the wind and not in the earthquake and not in the fire. You know what happened. God shows up in a whisper that you can only hear if you're quiet enough to listen. Silence doesn't always mean that God is absent. It might mean that he's operation operating just on a little bit deeper frequency than what we're used to. In fact, the seasons when God feels the most silent are often when he's doing his best work underneath the surface and we just don't see it. It's like a seed in the ground. Nothing, it looks like absolutely nothing's happening, but the roots are forming. Like a leader in a wilderness season, there's no platform, no, no applause, but your integrity is being shaped. It's maybe like a church in plateau. It's not growing, it's not dying, but it seems like nothing's happening. But in actuality, the church is being realigned for its next season of health, and you're playing a part to do that. And here's the really cool twist, right? Giving thanks during silence might be the most radical and faith-filled thing that you can do. I remember a time, pretty dry one, and I kept praying the same thing. God, I need a breakthrough. I need you to tell me what to do here. Nothing came, not for weeks, not for months. But looking back, I can see now what he was doing. He was pruning some things that I didn't know need pruned. And he was preparing opportunities that I could not yet see. And he was teaching me to rely on him, not on the next big whim. Gratitude didn't come easy for me during that time. And if you're going through a time like that right now, guess what? Gratitude, even on this week of Thanksgiving, is not necessarily going to be easy for you during the season. But I learned to give thanks before the answer came. And when I did that, my heart just shifted. It seemed like my ears opened, and eventually the silence broke. So here's what I want you to walk away with today. God's silence is not God's stillness. He may be doing his deepest work when you hear the least. And sometimes he's quiet because you're already in the place that he wants you to be, and he's just asking you to stay there for a while and trust and grow. So here's your moment today, your reflection, a couple of reflection questions for you. Where does God feel most silent in your life and ministry right now? And then the follow-up question to that is what if you assumed that he's working and asked, What are you forming in me right here? What are you forming in me right here? God, we admit we want clarity. We want to know exactly what your plan is for us. But today help us to choose to trust in you even when you're silent. Help us to know that you're working, even when we can't even seemingly find a trace of you. And give us the grace to be still and to say thank you even here. In Jesus' name. Amen.
