"When God Feels Silent"

Sometimes the hardest part of faith isn’t the struggle… it’s the silence. 

You pray.
 You wait.
 You listen. 

And nothing comes back. 

No answer.
 No direction.
 No clarity. 

Just quiet. 

And somewhere in that quiet, the question starts to form:
 “God… are You even there?” 

This episode steps into that silence — not to ignore it, but to face it honestly. Because Scripture doesn’t hide from that question… it meets it head on. 

If you’ve ever felt like God was distant, this one is for you. 

Bible, Basically — figuring out faith, together. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to Bible Basically, where we are figuring out faith together. This episode is gonna run deep. It's I'm gonna do my best to talk a little bit about one particular story that I've been through in my life. For those of you who don't know me, and maybe some of you who do, but don't know me on that level, I've been through a lot in my life. I've experienced a lot of things. A lot of them not good. Some of them amazing, by the way. So as as much bad as I have gone through, I have some of the most beautiful memories I've ever that a person could ever have. So please don't think that that I dwell on the negative, but I I have gone through a lot of things. And one of the things that I used to struggle with, and I'm sure you do too, is when God feels silent. Silence can be loud, deafening even. But it's not the kind of loud that you hear, it's the kind that you feel. You pray and nothing changes. You wait and nothing moves. You beg God for direction, and all you get back is quiet. And after a while, the question starts to creep in your head. Is he even listening to me? Or sometimes it's it's did I do something wrong? Did he forget about me? And and maybe you don't say it out loud, but you feel it.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

How long is this gonna last?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

And today we're gonna cover in Psalm 13, we're gonna find out David, that David, he felt that too.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

This isn't polished faith. David is one of the greats, right? One of the greats of the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

And he wasn't perfect. By all means, he was not perfect. Go look up at the story of David, and you'll find out pretty quick, he was not a perfect man. Here, he's asking God, how long is he are you gonna forget about me? How long are you gonna hide your face from me? This isn't church language. This is raw.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And this is honest.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

In verse two, he says, How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? He wasn't pretending.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

He's he's wrestling. He's struggling.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Having faith doesn't mean that you don't feel the struggle. Having faith doesn't mean that you don't feel pain or even feel alone, you're gonna feel it. I um try to interject a little bit of me with every show. And I feel like the last show or two haven't really talked a lot about some of the stuff that I've gone through. So today, today is gonna be a little different. When I was about 2021, a lot of years ago, I moved out to another part of the country and I went to a technical school. And it was right after my departure from the church where I made a conscious effort to distance myself from that part of my life. And I went out to this tech school and I fell in with the wrong crowd. Because, you know, you're you're I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be accepted, and I wanted to live life, right? I wanted to to do all of the things that I'd never done, and I wanted to experience the the the world the way I had never uh experienced it to its fullest. I was, you know, teenager, so I had done some things, but I'd never never gone, you know, too nuts with it. But when I moved out to Texas, yeah, that changed. So fell in with the wrong crowd, started doing all kinds of bad things. A lot of things that were let's just call them legally questionable.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

But mainly my friends, or those who I thought were my friends, they were not good people, they were nice guys, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

You know what I mean? Like you get along with them, and everybody's cool, like, you know, we're all laughing and having a good time.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Nobody was a jerk, but they certainly were not living the kind of life that as a man who was raised in the church, I was taught to live.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

So I get out there and I'm running with this tough crowd, and there's a lot of illegal substances being passed around. And I'm never gonna forget it. One night my uh friends and I go out to this big auto show in town. And we're out and we're having a great time, and we come back at 11 o'clock. We go back to our apartment. It was a school-funded apartment, so there was four of us in one two-bedroom place. It wasn't bad. It wasn't, you know, it's just kind of like a dorm, right? The apartment right next to us was a couple more of our friends, and I mean, we we wandered back into our place probably around 11:30, close to midnight. And next thing I know, there's a pounding on our front door, and it's our neighbor. And he's got a phone in his hand, and he is on the phone with 911, and I was the one to answer the door.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

And he looks at me, he says, Dennis. Something the matter, something's the matter with, we're just gonna call him Jason. Okay. Something, something's the matter with Jason.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

So I walk over, I mean, it's right across the hall, basically. I walk over to his apartment, and there's Jason. And he's kneeling in front of the couch, and there's evidence of illegal substance abuse. That's all I'll say. And he is white as a sheet and not responsive. But sitting, kneeling and sitting straight up, he wasn't slumped over, he wasn't passed out, his eyes were open, he was just not responsive. And it turns out his roommate was on the phone with 911. And 911 was basically telling his roommate, trying to check for pulse, check for breathing, trying to assess the situation while the ambulance was on their way.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

The ambulance was already coming.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

And they basically told him, you know, you need to do CPR, and he wouldn't. He was too scared. So I jumped in. And they walked me through a rudimentary version of how to do CPR on my friend. And he had a very, very, very, very slow pulse, and he was barely breathing.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And I performed CPR as long as I could. But he he left before the ambulance showed up. And I watched it happen. He was never conscious.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

He wasn't speaking, he wasn't doing anything, but you could tell he was there.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

His eyes were there. And I heard that small little gasp, and then they weren't. And in that moment, I was surrounded by people. My quote unquote friends were there. Amulence rushed in just after he expired. But I've never felt more alone as I was in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Because all of these feelings that David is going through, those feelings of how long is this gonna hurt?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

How long am I supposed to have sorrow in my heart?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

How long are you gonna hide your face from me? Did I do something wrong? In my case, I knew I did something wrong. I walked away. That next Sunday, I ran back to church. I didn't even know these people. And they must have thought I was a crazy person because I went, and when the altar call came, I was kneeling in front of their altar and sobbing.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

But I didn't hear anything. I didn't feel anything. Not in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

I felt I felt similar to the way I'm sure David felt, and the way I'm sure Jesus felt when he was on the cross. Jesus quoted Psalms twenty-two. He said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Sometimes God's silence is real. In those moments in Psalm 13, David feels abandoned.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

In those moments in my life, I felt abandoned. Because I'd always been taught exactly what I said to you guys in the very first episode. Maybe I walked away, but he didn't. But man, it sure felt like he did. But I'm gonna tell you right now, God's silence is not the same as God's absence.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

His silence is not the same as his absence.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

He tells us in Matthew twenty-eight twenty, Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. In Psalms thirty-four, eighteen, he says, The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Even when he feels distant.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

The Bible tells us he's near. David was the smart one. David was the smart one in the sense that he didn't walk away. I wish I could say the same. He was a lot smarter than I ever was.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Instead of walking away, he leaned in. And he says, in Psalm thirteen three, he says, Consider and answer me. O Lord my God, light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Even when God wasn't answering back, he kept reaching out. I was blessed even though I walked away. I had people praying for me. And even though I didn't hear him, God was near to me.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

And his silence is not a signal to stop praying.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

It's a reason to keep going.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Says, rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. I'm gonna say that again. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Don't give up. Don't stop pushing forward. But in all of that, be constant in prayer.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

David realizes this. And he shifts. Out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

First he's begging God, come on, man, where are you? Where have you been? I haven't heard from you. I haven't seen you. I need you. And in Psalm thirteen five, he just turns it and he says, You know what? What I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

He changed. He changed his tune. Nothing changed externally.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

But he changed his mindset.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

God never answered him in that moment. God was still silent. But David changed internally.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Faith isn't always based on what you see.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

It's based on who God has proven himself to be. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That was Hebrews thirteen, eight, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

God's character doesn't change.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Even when your situation doesn't change.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

We talked a while back about praising him through adversity. And David gives us another great example of this. He was struggling, right? He was begging God for something. And he said, Look, I trust in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. And he goes on and thirteen six, Psalm thirteen six, and he says, I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

David praised him.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Even though he couldn't hear him, I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Based on the blessings that you have given me, based on the life that you have provided for me, Lord, I may not be able to hear you now, but thank you. I rejoice in that steadfast love. I sing to you today. David praises before the answer comes.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Guys, that's faith. That's real faith. It took me a long time to realize that. And I don't expect to change your mind.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I don't expect that you're going to hear this podcast and automatically say, you know what, I haven't heard God in a long time. But everything's going to be great. I don't expect you to say that. But do I pray that you can look back later on in your life and say, you know what, even though I didn't hear him, he was right next to me.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

That's what I prayed for you.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I pray that you can praise him through adversity.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I pray that no matter what you're going through in your life that you can get on your knees and lift up your hands and thank him.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Couple weeks back we talked about Job Job thirteen fifteen Though he slay me I will hope in him though he slay me I will hope in him sitting in silence maybe you've been praying waiting hoping something was going to change and it hasn't maybe the answer hasn't come maybe the direction isn't clear maybe the silence feels heavier than anything else you're carrying but remember what if silence doesn't mean absence what if God isn't ignoring you but he's holding you in a way that you can't see yet even David asked how long and maybe you're asking the same thing God how long do I have to wait? How long am I going to go through this? But in the middle of that question he made a decision and he said I will trust not because everything made sense not because the situation changed but because God hadn't and maybe that's where faith lives not in having all the answers but in trusting the one who does thank you so much for listening you guys are in my prayers this is Bible basically where we're figuring out faith together