When the Silence Feels Deafening

Devotional

You've been praying, and nothing's coming back.

Not a "no." Not a "wait." Nothing. The ceiling. You open the Bible and the words sit there. You sit in church and the songs happen around you. And the worst part isn't that God feels far. It's that you remember when he didn't. You know what it's like to sense him, and you don't anymore, and you don't know what you did.

David has a psalm for that, and it starts with a word he says four times. "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?" Four times. And I want you to notice that this is in the Bible. God put the complaint in his own book. He's not offended by "how long." He wrote it down so you'd have the words.

Then Isaiah says something most of us would never say out loud. "Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior." A God who hides. Isaiah isn't accusing. He's describing. There are seasons when God withdraws the sense of his presence, and Scripture doesn't pretend otherwise. But read the whole verse. He's "the Savior." Hiding and saving are not opposites. He can be hidden and still be working. In fact, that's usually when he is.

Lamentations is written out of the rubble of a destroyed city. Jeremiah watched Jerusalem burn. And from inside that, he writes, "The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly." Quietly. Not because God can't handle the noise. Because in the silence you find out whether you came for him or for what he gives.

And Habakkuk is a prophet who got silence and then got an answer, and the answer was: keep waiting. "If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay." Notice the "seems." It seems slow. From where you're standing. From where God's standing, it's exactly on schedule.

Now, here's what makes the silence bearable.

There was one prayer that got true silence. Not delayed. Not hidden. Refused. In the garden: "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup." And the Father said no. Then on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And heaven said nothing. For three hours the sky went dark and the Son got no answer.

That's the silence you'll never get. Jesus took the real forsakenness so that yours would only ever be a felt one. God is not actually gone from you. He was actually gone from his Son, for a moment, so that he could never be gone from you. The hiddenness you're in has a floor. The cross is the floor.

So end where David ends. Psalm 13 starts with "how long" and finishes with this. "But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me." Nothing changed between verse 2 and verse 5. No answer came. David just chose to remember the record while the silence was still going.

Do that. Say "how long" as many times as you need to. Then say "but I have trusted." The silence isn't the end of the psalm. It never is.