שתיקה

"i cried out to God for help; i cried out to God to hear me. when i was in distress, i sought the Lord; at night i stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted. i remembered you, o God, and i groaned; i mused, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; i was too troubled to speak. i thought about the former days, the years of long ago; i remembered my songs in the night. my heart mused and my spirit inquired: will the Lord reject forever? will He never show his favor again? has His unfailing love vanished forever? has His promised failed for all time? has God forgotten to be merciful? has He in anger withheld His compassion? then i thought, 'to this i will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.' i will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, i will remember your miracles of long ago. i will mediate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. your ways, O God, are holy. what god is so great as our God? you are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples." psalm 77:1-14

i've been thinking a lot lately about silence. i remember my choir director once told me that even silence is singing. you don't have any noise coming out, but it is still very much a part of singing. without silence, people would just continue to sing and sing and sing. but composers write silence into their works, to give their piece body and character, to give it a certain feeling. it gives you a time to reflect. a time to think. a time to be left alone to your thoughts. silence is as much a part of music as the notes are. and silence is as much a part of our lives as the noisy or busy parts are.

there are many times recently in my life that i have asked and asked and prayed and prayed and pleaded and pleaded for direction in my life, for some sort of answer concerning something, and yet God remains silent. and i'm not going to lie, that can be super frustrating. there are passages that say "ask and it will be given". well my reaction, if i were to be honest, is usually "God, i'm asking, and you aren't responding or giving or anything. a little help would be nice, thank you very much". i know that's probably not the Christian response or the Biblical one or anything. but that's how i feel sometimes.

but here's the deal. just like silence is as much a part of music as the singing is, silence is just as much a part of  speaking as the actually speaking part.

here's what i love about king david. kind david was chosen by God to be king, and it is so evident in so many ways how God spoke to him, how God used him, how God was working in david's life. yet david still made so many mistakes. the above passage was actually written by him. now you wouldn't think that someone like david would feel that God was distant and silent. but he did, and he wrote it down here. in the first part of the psalm, he explained his frustration and his irritation. he said how he was feeling. i cried out to God for help; i cried out to God to hear me. when i was in distress, i sought the Lord. will the Lord reject forever? will He never show his favor again? david was lost. david was confused. he didn't understand why God would be silent. he too wondered and questioned. but then he ends it with a solution, with something to do. while i think david was about as distressed and frustrated as i sometimes am, he came up with a solution (and normally i don't...i just remain distressed and frustrated). he said that in the times where he feels God is distant and stagnant, then he will choose to remember how God worked long ago. that he will remember the deeds of the Lord from long ago. that he will choose to still praise God.

i guess my purpose in writing this was to share that passage with you. i can't write it much better than david did, so i will just let the passage speak. but i challenge you, like i will be challenging myself, to remember God's faithfulness in times of silent. we never know why He is silent, or maybe He isn't silent at all but He's just not speaking the way we were expecting. but nonetheless, He will always be faithful. so remember how He has worked in your life, and how He has spoken. and then wait expectantly for Him to speak again. but maybe He orchestrates those times of silence for us to reflect on His work in our lives, i don't really know. but i do know this: that God has a plan for our lives, plans not to harm us but give us a hope and a future and that he works all things together for the good of those who love Him. He works in our lives for His glory. in the end, i am confident that He will be glorified, even if it takes times of silence.