Brethren this is another day and i will want to share with you on this topic THE SILENCE OF GOD. i will treat this topic in sequence. Let us pray, God of all grace revel your word to us that all heart that will read this word of truth be blessed in Jesus name. amen Turn with me to Psalms 22:1-2 and it says My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. Few Christians have chronicled their struggle with God more poignantly than C.S. Lewis. The famed author was deeply in love with his wife, Joy. Though they met and married late in life, few romances bloom as theirs did. Not long after their relationship began, she was diagnosed with cancer. She endured a long and terrible season of illness before she died. Lewis wrote about his feelings following joys death in a series of notebooks that were later published as A Grief Observed just before his own death in 1963. His most telling observation? The silence of God. No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness . . . On the rebound one passes into tears and pathos. Maudlin tears. I almost prefer the moments of agony. These are at least clean and honest . . . Meanwhile, where is God? . . . When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him . . . if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become . . . Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?1 Many of us have experienced the silence of God. We cry out to God, and there seems to be no answer. We pray, pouring out our hearts, only to hear the words echo back without a reply. The maddening thing is that we have been conditioned to expect a direct relation between input and output. If we work a certain number of hours, we will reach a certain level of success. If we place our children in the right schools, enroll them in the right programs and practice the proper procedures, they will turn out as hoped for. If we invest our money strategically and wisely, we will receive a fair return on our investment. When we cry out to God and nothing happens, how can we help but feel somethings not quite right-and that the problem is with the Listener? Few things are more damaging to a relationship than a sense of not being heard or responded to. Its as if we dont matter, that there is no genuine concern. If God is calling for our soul, and we are attempting to connect with him at that level, there seems no place-no excuse-for silence. The silence, however, is seldom permanent. Lewis later wrote these words: I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted.... [I was like] the drowning man who cant be helped because he clutches and grabs.2 So what was he clutching and grabbing? What was he missing in what first seemed like silence? Perhaps the most penetrating question is simply this: what happens when we call out to God? According to the Bible, three things. GOD HEARS, CARES AND RESPONDS When we pray, God hears us. The Bible states in no uncertain terms that this is the confidence we have in approaching God: . . . he hears us (1 John 5:14). When we pray, whether by spoken word, ritual or quiet anguish, our prayers ascend unencumbered to Gods presence. But thats not all. When we pray, God cares. What we attempt to convey is more important to him than we could possibly imagine. The Bible asserts this as well: Let him [God] have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you (1 Peter 5:7 LB). Notice the emphasis: God is concerned not simply with his grand plan but with our cares and concerns. When it comes to prayer, Gods empathy knows no bounds. But it is the Bibles third declaration that perplexes us. When we pray, God answers. The Bible is emphatic: there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. You say, He does not respond to peoples complaints. But God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it (Job 33:13-14). Now you may be thinking, That isnt true. I specifically prayed for a Maserati sports car, and its not sitting in my driveway, so I know God doesnt answer every prayer. I know — Ive prayed that one too. Or you may say, Once I prayed that I would get to work on time — that was it, no big deal, no sweat off Gods brow — and I got a flat tire. More seriously, you may resonate with Lewiss feelings after his wife passed away. When you hear someone casually toss out that God answers every prayer, you say, Listen, thats just not true. And I have the experience to prove it. But the Bible doesnt back down when challenged on this. It stands by the declaration that God hears, cares and responds. Always. So what is happening with Gods answer? In our struggle with Gods perceived silence we must take into account an idea that is often alien to our sensibilities: that a prayer was not answered in the way we wanted it answered or thought it should have been answered, doesnt mean that an answer did not come directly from God. God promises to answer every prayer; how he chooses to answer is his affair. Consider the following ways a clear response from God might be mistaken for silence. Mistaken for Silence: No The first is the most obvious. Sometimes Gods answer is simply No. What we ask for, no matter how well-intentioned, could be inappropriate. Yet we often refuse to listen to Gods no, insisting instead that God has yet to answer. It is often beyond our thinking to imagine God denying our requests. Once Jesus and his followers were traveling to Jerusalem. One of the cities they journeyed through was Samaria, so some went ahead to arrange a place with local inhabitants for Jesus and the rest of the disciples to stay. What happened next is interesting: The people there did not welcome him . . . When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? (Luke 9:53-54) These two disciples sincerely felt that their question made perfect sense in terms of what had transpired. But did Jesus answer, Sure, guys, lets smoke em? Jesus turned on them: Of course not! (Luke 9:55). God cares deeply about us and hears every request, but that doesnt mean his answer cant still be No. This becomes particularly clear to me when I think of my role as a father. Nobody loves my children more than I do. But sometimes when they ask for something, the answer must be — for their sake — a firm and deliberate no. More times than not, they dont have a clue as to why. It makes perfect sense in their minds to stay up all night, to eat pizza for every meal, to invest a significant amount of our financial resources into the profit margin of the local mall, and to establish a secondary residence in Orlando. Ive seen this lessen as they mature. Their requests are more informed as they learn to apply the values by which they have been raised. So it is with our souls in relation to prayer. We often make requests that cannot be granted. But we can be assured that Gods operative stance toward us is shameless devotion. Even when pain erupts, tragic events are allowed to continue or God denies our requests, we can rest assured that we have been granted a greater blessing — or kept from a deeper, more lasting pain. And Gods no is seldom left to itself. The answer often goes further. When Paul repeatedly begged God to remove his thorn in the flesh, the answer was No. But there was more: [God] said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). The purpose behind Gods refusal and the ramifications it holds for our life are met by the direct presence and power of God. The fullest sense of Gods reply is No, but Im here . . . and it will be OK. Trust me. ( TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW), thank you for joining in todays bible study with PASTOR RHEMA DAVID ANYUNKU, meet you again on this group tomorrow, God bless you.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 19:29:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015