When God is silent

It’s so easy to battle different thoughts in our hearts when God is silent. I know how it is because I’ve been there. Many times. It’s not a pleasant place to be, although it’s one of the necessary seasons followers of Jesus will go through if we desire spiritual growth. There have been seasons in my life when God was silent and I found myself battling loneliness, doubt, anger and anxiety because God felt so far away, watching me struggle in my pain and fear and doing nothing about it.

It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re praying and you’re not receiving the answers you’re expecting to get. There was a season when it felt as if God spoke to me audibly everyday. I’d gladly pray knowing that I would get my answers sooner or later. But I stepped into another season and it felt as if the HolySpirit’s voice I used to hear had finally ceased. Now this shouldn’t be mistaken for the times when it feels as if God is distant because we’ve allowed sin drift us apart. I’m here to let you know you’re going to have some seasons like that. Job did. Jesus did. David did. Apostle Paul did. So we won’t be any different. We aren’t more ‘special’ than them.

But do you know it’s so hard to hear God when our heart is carrying a burden we aren’t meant to? Our hearts can falter and be our thoughts can stray into territories of doubt, fear and sin. A part of us might even question the convictions we held so strongly in the past.

Maybe this sounds like you. Perhaps you’ve had days when God was silent and all you had to do was wonder and wander aimlessly through the maze of the dark season you found yourself in. Maybe you’re trying to tell your heart that you’ve got it all figured out and you can handle it. I’m here to let you know it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to tell God you’re clueless about everything and you need all the help you can get. It’s okay to take a breather and just be held

So how do you stay afloat when God is silent? Or how do you keep thriving in grace and pulling through despite the odds? It’s by telling your heart to be still and know that He is God. You must remember all the times God came through for you and hold on to those memories. It’s one of the reasons why I talked about the benefits of journaling in this post.

We tend to forget things a lot, so we need to keep reminding our souls over and over again. Hence faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith can only be built the more we feed on God’s word. Strength is built if we keep reminding ourselves of God’s goodness. Our journal entries of our past victories in Christ is strong enough to remind us of God’s faithfulness. The HolySpirit can minister to us through those words and melt every resistance that may have been built in our hearts due to the pain and hardship.

You must allow the HolySpirit inside you to rekindle the fire within and get you singing again. You need to keep singing until the voice of life drowns out the voice of your flesh. Until the life inside you swallows up the voices of death threatning to drown you in.

My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

In seasons like this, it’s so tempting to retreat from pursuing God. When we are weary, the last thing we want to do in our journey is keep running because we fear we might faint. We fear we might just be playing religion because our hearts can no longer find meaning or it’s struggling to find the light at the end of the tunnel. This is when you must hold on tightly. In fact, it’s the times when you feel like giving up, that’s when your victory is close. That’s when you should try again. It’s the moment you must wait on the Lord so he can renew your strength.

Only then will you mount up with wings as eagles. You’ll run and not be weary. You’ll walk and not grow faint.

We all have our discouraging days and here’s how to overcome it. When God is silent, you must remember that He’s still there. Rooting for you. He’s for you, holding you steady, making sure everything is working out for your good, regardless of how everything around you may seem. It’s like the winter. Everything may look gloomy, cold and dull on the outside, the trees are not even in their full bloom in the winter, but so much life is brimming behind the scenes. If only the all knowing God can open our eyes to see it. If only we can trust Him enough to see how he’s re-arranging our lives in obedience to Christ. For He sees the end from the beginning.

God’s got this. And He’s got you. One thing I know for sure is this, even when your heart fails, even when your flesh is too weak to go on, when God’s got you, He’s never letting you go.

Bloom with Love. Xx!

Photo by Maycon Marmo