Moving On in the Silence

We all go through seasons when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling. If you are in one now, read this excerpt from 5 Things To Do When God Seems Distant by Rebecca Rene Jones (via Relevant)

Know That What You're Experiencing Is Normal

It is so unshockingly normal that C.S. Lewis actually said our fluctuating feelings about God were perhaps the only constant of our faith. "The law of Undulation," he nicknamed it. In a nutshell, "undulation" implies that the Christian walk is a back and forth rocking between sweet "communications of His presence" and then, later: wilderness and soul-numbing silence.

In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis writes that God “withdraws, if not in fact, (then) at least from … conscious experience … He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.” This may seem unpleasant, but it works in us something that's critical to our spiritual maturity: a decoupling of our faith from our feelings about it.

Undulation forces us to go beyond our own gut—and beyond our circumstances—and agree that God is good and attentive even when life suggests otherwise.

Embrace Boring Things

Today's temptation is to bide time by distracting ourselves. We are categorically bad at waiting, at welcoming quiet, at actively wanting from God. We are much better at filling in downtime and numbing our aches with Pinterest, Twitter and Netflix.

But God dares us to do something different: To stay expectant. To stay hungry. To practice hope, as Paul says, by patiently and confidently fixing our attention on the promises we don't yet possess (Romans 8:24-25).

Carve out quiet places to remember what you're hoping for. For me, after Dad died, that meant taking lots of lonesome bike rides and a tedious part-time job counting pills at a local pharmacy. It'd be a stretch to call these spiritual disciplines, but I'll go to the mat for this: they helped me protect a precious hush that God eventually spoke into.

Tell God What You Think

It's OK to be blunt. The great prophet Elijah even prayed to die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said (1 Kings: 19:4). His earnestness isn't exactly an anomaly, either: so many psalms echo some version of this, peppering God with the same rolling questions: Why haven't you moved sooner? Or in quite the way we'd hoped?

On the surface, they might seem presumptuous, but at their heartbeat, these questions are actually something different: They are appeals to God's good character. They're sincere questions that finger a perceived disconnect between who God says He is and why His action—or seeming lack of action—seems out of step with his nature.

Sometimes, we confuse waiting on God with plunking down until we're handed crisp itineraries.

Don't Demand Burning Bushes

God can use pyrotechnics, of course, but our brushes with Him aren't always so theatrical. When we knock, ask and seek, sometimes He doesn't match our decibel level.
God honors and often uplifts the quietly faithful, and what's more: He often comes in the quiet. When God tells Elijah to wait before Him on the mountaintop, we witness something remarkable: God doesn't show up where we think He'd appear. He's not in the snapping windstorm, or the earthquake or the blaze. Elijah can't find God's voice in any of them. Then comes a gentle whisper, and it is so divinely flooded that Elijah covers his face with his cloak.

What if God intends to meet us precisely in the places we'd least imagine?

Keep Moving

Sometimes, we confuse waiting on God with plunking down until we're handed crisp itineraries.

Don't mistake me, God can give them, and historically, He has. But that doesn't mean that He gives them always.

It's tempting to cross our arms and demand that, in this particular decision, or season, we need to somehow "feel Him in it." We make our forward movement conditional on it. But in doing so, might we be subtly discounting His word—especially its rich wisdom books, like Proverbs, which give us insight precisely for moments when God's voice is neither loud nor explicit? His word, put poetically, is already a lamp for our feet (Psalm 119:105).

Sometimes we wait by sitting still, and sometimes we wait even while moving. We seek Biblical counsel, we persist in prayer, and then, when the time comes: we go forward confidently. We take peace in this: that He will be with us because He promised to be. That He's hemming us in and fighting for us, whether we feel it or not.

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