At some point in our lives, most of us want to hear God speak directly to us, directly into our life situation. I am convinced that intimacy with God is our highest calling. What Adam had in the garden before the Fall is a picture of what life in Christ can become… intimate, familiar, loving, without secrets or shame, the PERFECT relationship. But for almost all of us we are still a long, long ways from it.
If intimacy with God is our highest calling, then why do we struggle so with achieving it? Why is it that we don’t hear about or see where God is speaking to people regularly? Why does my prayer life feel more like a one sided conversation than a dialog? Why is the silence so quiet?
A conversation this weekend has brought this question into my spirit and I have been wrestling with it for three days now. While I suspect there may be other reasons, I have insight into some of the reasons and a path through a season of silence that may be beneficial for you.
Let’s begin with the order of priorities God has for us. The most important thing God has for us is to know Him. That is priority #1. Not knowing ABOUT Him, but knowing Him. He sent Jesus to earth to engage humanity face to face, skin to skin, heart to heart. Jesus’ life on planet earth was brief – 30 or so years, but in God’s providential plan, He inspired the writing of the Word which not only fleshes out the “God Story” for the billions of us who did not get to know Him in the flesh, but creates the pathway to meet and truly know Him. Also in His plan, Jesus’ resurrection means Jesus is alive. If He is alive then He is knowable. At my conversion, I believe Jesus was right there with me, talking to me, offering me life in Him. When I accepted, He placed His Holy Spirit within me and I was changed. I know it. I felt it. Others saw it and commented on it. It really happened. Now humanity’s enemy, the bible calls Him Satan, has periodically tried to convince me otherwise. Most of His attempts have been to get my eyes off Jesus, my spiritual ears from listening to the Holy Spirit, and my actions away from intimacy with God. Those times I have been diverted, quiet ensued. This brings me to the first reason we may enter a time of silence in our relationship with the Lord.
Spiritual warfare is a reality. The enemy actively fights against God. The children of God, believers who have been saved through faith in Christ, are at the frontline of that war. There are many similarities in warfare we see and what goes on in the spiritual realm, but I want to focus upon one aspect – communication. Knowing the battle plan and keeping in touch with command is vital in battle. This is often hard to do, particularly when the fight is intense and the din of battle drowns out all other sound. Spiritual warfare will have times when we are getting hit with any number of assaults. The good news is our Lord God is the ultimate Commander in Chief. He has both a plan and resources to win the war and bring us through the battle. When we are in the battle, we may not clearly hear Him, but we can trust Him. We make our requests, we hold our position, and we do what we know from His Word we are to do. In the absence of a clear word from the Lord, we trust the Word of the Lord and the last thing He told us to do. And we hold on. We also look for reinforcements. This would be Godly friends who can come alongside us in the fight. Ones who will join us in the battle. Ones who will also be communicating with our Commander, the Lord God Almighty, about our needs. Scriptures for this are 2Cor 10:3-5 and Eph 6:10-18.
Reason 2.
On-going sin. Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins – all of them. God in His wisdom has given us a role to play in our salvation. We repent – we turn away from sin and turn to God. There are many things that can be said about why sin is such an evil thing, but for the sake of this discussion I’m going to focus upon just one aspect. From where we stand sin lies in the opposite direction of God. If we choose to run after sin, we are turning our back on God. Have you ever noticed the orientation of our ears? They are cupped forward. This allows the capture and amplification of sounds in front of us. This also provides a degree of shielding from sound waves coming from behind us. This is a physical picture of a spiritual truth. When we turn away from God, it becomes much more difficult to hear God’s voice calling us back to Him. That which we are facing grows louder and more strident. The voice of God grows harder to hear. And God seldom shouts. Hopefully I can come back to that theme in another post. God can and will shout, but it is the exception rather than the rule. His gentle whisper and subtle nudges are the norm.
The remedy when on-going sin causes us to lose awareness of God’s voice is simple, if not necessarily easy. Cease the sin immediately, repent, confess, and seek the Lord’s help through Godly friends and counselors who can help you take your next steps. In this I have seen an accountability partner provide tremendous benefits. God works through His people in the healing process.
Reason 3.
Emotional wounds not dealt with. My understanding of God is that He has saved me utterly and completely. My experience has been that in a few cases God walks me through the healing of damage created by sin, my sin and the sins others have done to me, over time. Although I have been a believer for 30+ years, there are still times of periodic cleansing, teaching, and healing that He does in me years after I felt Him power-wash my soul. I am getting into an area that still holds a degree of mystery for me, but I have seen this at work in my life and in others. God will choose to heal some things from our past years into our walk with Him. The forgiveness has long since been applied, but sometimes God wants to heal the scars. In some cases our stuffed hurt actually encases a bit of poison that must be removed. If the Lord wants to do the healing, our role is to allow Him, the Great Physician, to do surgery. Covering it up, holding it in, saying it doesn’t exist does not further the Lord’s work in this area. Giving it to the Lord, confessing and lifting it up to Him, is the right thing to do. One of the areas I have seen this frequently take place is for people who have been victimized by sexual sin. Opening up about this to a caring and wise counselor is a one of the most benefical steps in the healing process.
Reason 4.
Our unrealized expectations of God leading to a “God Grudge”. An unfortunate situation often occurs when a person comes to faith. A well-meaning soul will tell the new convert something like, “You are changed and your life will be rich, full, and exciting because you are a Christian.” While there are many blessings that come with being a Christ-follower, absence from life’s difficulties is not one of them. In fact, when we immerse ourselves into living a fully surrendered life we will experience times of need that lead us into greater dependence upon Him. Sadly many believers reach a point where their expectations are not met, but rather than seeking Godly counsel, they bottle up the disappointment and trudge on. Over time and as more unrealized expectations occur, a God Grudge develops.
I have seen this and been fortunate enough to speak words of encouragement to people to help them identify the source of their grudge and help them take it to God. He already knows we are holding it. He just wants us to admit it and then give it to him. I can think of five situations where the persons took this step of faith and within a month a break-through in the natural realm of a long-standing problem was manifested. Intimacy requires honesty. God can handle our honesty. We just need to be open to what He has to say back to us. Psalm 51 resonates for Reasons 2 – 4.
Reason 5.
Disobedience to what the Lord has said. I know that disobedience to the Lord is sin, but I want to zero in on disobedience to God’s personal word to us. I shared my most poignant and painful example of this in a post last summer. https://areliablefaith.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/responding-to-the-nudge/. In this story I share how I rationalized my way out of obedience to the Holy Spirit’s nudge and the consequences were significant. This example and some lesser periods of waffling when presented with promptings from the Lord have clearly shown me that quiet ensues when we ignore what the Lord tells us.
Our Pastor has shared this with us as well. “Have you done the last thing I told you?” This is the question the Lord has laid on his heart when he has tried to maintain a dialog, while not being fully obedient to the last thing the Lord told Him to do. I admit to the same thing. A few years back I went through an extended time where the Lord repeatedly brought the same scripture to my mind as I prayed. It wasn’t until I obeyed the practical application of that scripture that my prayer life moved forward.
God is not into superficiality. There is no façade that works. Obedience is essential if we desire unhindered dialog with the Lord.
Reason 6.
We are to wait. This one is perhaps the most common for me. And it really only becomes an issue when we get our priorities backwards. At the beginning I said our #1 priority is to Know the Lord. For the finite to know the Infinite takes all our life and at the end we will still fall far short of knowing God fully. But that is what God desires and has called us to. Part of the process for getting to know the Lord is that we walk in our second priority which is: Know and Do the Things God Wants Us to Do. Life spent being where God wants and doing what God created us to do is a life well lived. However, our “doing for God” can usurp our first priority – Knowing God. When this happens we can get out of the Lord’s whisper range and we can move into the realm of silence.
I have fallen into this pit more than once. I am an active person. I also tend toward being a workaholic. I struggled to type that because in my mind I am just thorough, but my wife and others have pointed this out with enough examples that I cannot deny it. It is not uncommon for me to get involved in a good thing but fail to take the time to validate it against the Lord’s leading. Being over-committed to good things invariably leads to being under-committed to the best things.
The solution here is pretty simple. Make the #1 priority the #1 priority. Isaiah 40:31 is on the spot. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. The shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint.”
If we seek first God and His righteousness, then we put ourselves in position to hear, to learn, and to move when He says move. For me waiting is manifested in a number of ways, but let me share my primary few.
1) Rising early with the bible, a cup of coffee, and a heart to enjoy anything new that I perceive is from the Lord. This may be a new insight in the scripture. It could be a person the Lord brings to mind that I pray for. It is often an idea that rumbles around in my Spirit picking up scriptural ties that becomes a blog post.
2) Attending worship with the sole intention of lifting up adoration and praise unto the One Who is worthy of every last bit of praise I have to give. There was a time in my life when I had to listen to a number of praise songs, concentrating on their lyrics before I moved into deep worship. I seem to have moved to a place where I come expectant and ready to commune with the Father in worship. This is awesome within our church, but it now occurs regularly whenever I listen to praise and worship.
3) Serving others has become a source of blessing for me. I have found that in praying for and caring for others, I become more sensitive to the Lord nudging me, prompting me, leading me. I know Who the answer is and so in listening to others in need, I am open to the Holy Other speaking life and hope to them. Sometimes it may be through me. Sometimes it may be through another in the conversation. But I have consistently seen the Lord minister. My role is to simply wait, be open and receptive, and do or say what I believe He leads me to do or say.
4) Out in nature – particularly at sunrise or sunset. For this one I generally am simply swept up into the awesomeness of Who God is… Creator, Sustainor, Artist, Master Designer, intimate Friend, Loving Father – and worship ensues. The utterences of my heart flow unbidden to the throne of grace. Sometimes I sense something specific in my Spirit. Always I receive the Lord’s refreshing.
I know this has been a long post. I hope and pray it has been encouraging for you. The Father loves you and He has a message for you. Seek Him and He will speak to you. Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”
In closing I share a few of my favorite pics from my sunrise and sunset devotions. Be blessed my friend and allow the Father’s blessing to flow in, through, and around you to in rich abundance.
Sunrise over Crater Lake, Oregon.
Crater Lake, Oregon
East Rim of Crater Lake at Sunset
Alpine-glow on Mount Rainier, Washington.
Update South Carolina Foggy Sunrise
Radiant!
The heavens declare the glory of God.
The best man can do is but a glimmer compared to the beauty the Lord bestows on the canvas of this world. View across our front yard.
Sunset on Ruby Beach, Washington.
Ruby Beach at Sunset and Low Tide
Splitting the Sky
Rows in the heavens
Sunrise in the South Pacific.
Darkness tried to hide it, but the Light cannot be contained!
Sunset over the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia.
Sunrise over Mahon’s Pool at Maroubra Beach, Australia
Sunset over my backyard this past Sunday.
The reason for our hope. Pretty Place, Camp Greenville, SC
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