God is not Silent

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up, you guys? Today's episode is actually day nine out of my 21-day devotional called 21 Days of Becoming a Better You. And it's titled This Day, When God Feels Silence. When God feels silent. So there's there's gonna be seasons in your life when heaven, the heavens feel like brass. So you pray and nothing seems to come back. You read scriptures and the words feel flat. You worship and the rooms feel empty. And instead of the presence of God filling your chest, there is just this quietness that fills your chest, a heavy quietness. And I've lived in this season many times in my life. After losing my parents in the middle of my addiction years, or when shame made me feel unworthy to even approach God. And maybe it was the aftermath of a decision I had made that created its own brand of desertness in my heart. And so, but here's what I've learned is you know, God's silence is not God's absence. You know, just because you cannot hear him doesn't mean he has stopped speaking to you. And just because you cannot feel him doesn't mean that he has moved. Like just because you haven't felt God in a long time doesn't mean he's moved from away from you. The clouds do not move the sun. It only affects your perception of them. And so I've learned that God is so high, yet he's just so close. So in your silent seasons, what we do matters. We can either retreat, deciding that the silence means abandonment, or we can lean in, deciding that the silence is an invitation to go deeper, to trust harder, and to wait actively for the Lord to move. There's a man in the Bible named Elijah. And Elijah, he heard God, but he didn't hear God in like an earthquake or in a fire. And he didn't even hear God in a great wind. He heard God in a still small voice. And this just means that sometimes God is quietest when he is the closest. But what can we do on the silence? We have to keep showing up. We have to attend church, we need to pray, we need to read, and we need to do all these things even when it feels hollow. The second thing we have to do is we have to speak it out. We need to tell God how we feel about the silence, and then he can handle our honesty. So once we're honest with God and speak it out to God, he's going to show up. He's so high, yet he is so close. The third thing we need to do is revisit the last thing that he said. You know, oftentimes we haven't obeyed the last word yet. And so we just need to go back to a place of remembrance. I think one of the greatest things you can do for your faith is actually to remember what God has brought you from. But not only that, is go back to what he's asked you to do before. You're trying to get him to do something new. Be obedient to the last word he said. And the last thing I have is to wait with expectation, not resentment. So waiting is not wasted. There's purpose in your waiting, there's purpose in your pain, and God has plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Psalms 37, 7, it says this. It says, be still. Not before yourself, not before your circumstance, not before your pain, not before your thoughts, not before your feelings. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Not rushing him. Not your way or the highway, God, it's be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. So are you currently in a silence season? Is the first thing you need to identify? And how have you been responding to it? Second questions you can ask are, what was the last clear thing God spoke to you? The last thing I want to encourage you with, encourage you with is have you fully acted on that? And so the question I like to ask myself is, God, what was the last thing you say? Because the reality is sometimes we can't remember. So it's Lord, help me remember the thing you've asked me to be obedient and that I haven't. And so we're gonna pray and then I'm I'm gonna let you guys go. And I hope you learned something today. So, God, even in the silence, we choose to trust you. And even when we cannot feel you, we trust and know that you are near. So, Lord, tune our ears to your frequencies. Lord, while we while we wait, keep us faithful to what you're asking us to do. And Lord, we just honor you and we thank you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hope you learned something, guys, and I love you so much.