When God Is Silent

Have you ever looked up to the heavens and wondered if God was really listening because it seemed as if He has been silent for so long?

You have prayed and prayed for something to change or be taken away. In the times of trying to listen to His voice, He has remained silent.

I must first admit that this has been the case for me with this blog post.

I have had a long silence without something from the Lord with which to share on here.  I love to write - but have felt very dry and without words.  I have felt the Lord has been silent to me.

It has been a very busy fall.  Once school started it has been difficult for me to really find a great amount of time to be still before the Lord.  That frustrated me.... I love to just sit at His feet but I felt I was being Martha so much more than Mary.  In that, I felt that sometimes God was silent.

However, what the Lord has been showing me collectively over the past few months has now come together in a culmination of how He has NOT been silent. He never really is...

Back in the summer we decided to be more up-to-date in the TV world and purchased an Amazon Fire Stick.  You might wonder why that has anything to do with what I am writing.. bear with me.  I had recently stumbled upon documentaries on my Kindle Fire.  Now, with the Fire Stick, I could watch them on the regular TV as well.  I began to open up the world of historical learning for this always learning brain of mine. Most of my friends and family thought I was crazy - and still do for the most part. :)  I realize documentaries are not on most people's list of wonderful things to do, but I desired to learn more about ancient history so I could understand more of what was happening in the background as I read God's Word.

I learned about ancient Greece and Rome in ways that I failed to do in high school and college.  Partly because I usually fell asleep in class. I am being honest here!

I also began to make connections with what really was going on historically and it helped me understand more deeply of what I was reading in God's Word.

As the past semester of school began to get crazier, and my time with the Lord began to be more sporadic, my feeling of God's silence became overwhelming at times. I felt the need to go searching more deeply in the history of it all.

That led me to what I am writing about now - when God is silent. I began to dig more deeply into the history of what happened "between the Testaments".  Meaning - what happened between the Old and New Testaments when God was silent to His people.  I was curious as to why He was so silent.

From what I am understanding in my research, there were no Prophets to the Jewish nation after the book of Malachi was written. There was silence from God for four hundred years.

However, God's Presence is so evident in what happened in those four hundred years.  Prophecies were fulfilled from Daniel where Greek and Roman Empires would burst upon the world scene and make everything that was revealed in the Old Testament of the coming Messiah to fall into place. The Greeks made a way for all people to understand a language.  The Romans built more sophisticated systems and roads so that eventually, followers of Christ could travel and share with the known world how Jesus, the Messiah, gave His life for us on the cross and rose again.

All of those systems had to fall into place and arranged in such a way for the perfect timing of God's Son coming to earth. It was time for Emmanuel - God WITH us.

This set of verses has taken on deeper meaning to me this Christmas:

Galatians 4:4,5 

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 

to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

I am continuing to learn that God's timing is everything.

When I feel God is silent and not listening.

When I wonder if He really cares.

He is always there working even when I cannot see it.

One thing is for certain, during this dry season I have found that I have been searching for Him more. I have desired to seek Him and find Him with my whole heart to find out why He has been so silent.

In that seeking, He has revealed Himself to me through ways I did not fully grasp at the time.  I now have a deeper understanding of Him because of the silence. He used the "things of the world" to draw me to Him in ways I never would have if He had not been silent.  He used the nations of this world to fulfill His plans to bring His Son into this world at just the exact time, and the Lord continues to show me that sometimes He uses the world I see today, or events in my life from this world, to draw me closer to Him. 

During those silent times from God, one has two choices.  One can either choose to believe and trust even when the silence is deafening.  Or, one can reject that He cares and live life as if He doesn't exist.  

There were both of those examples represented when Luke 2 happened. 

I desire to be one that chooses to believe even when the silence is deafening. Christmas is about God breaking the silence to proclaim His Good News and Truth.  

Long ago the Shepherds were going about their normal routine that night on the hillside of Bethlehem. God broke the silence and shared the Good News of His Son, the Savior, being born. The same is true for us all. We need only seek Him and trust Him as we wait for the silence to be broken.  He is working all things for our good and His glory.

Luke 2:1-14

1  In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 
2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 
3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 
to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 
6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 
7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.


8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 
9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 
12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”