Silence

Have you ever played the quiet water still water game with your children? As moms, we usually do this because we need some peace and quiet to regain our sanity! But, what about when God is silent? You know, when you pray and it feels like those prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. It feels like God is a million miles away, and you long to hear his voice, even if it is the voice of conviction. You have prayed, begged, pleaded, gotten angry, cried, repented and still nothing just absolute silence.

Some well-meaning Christian friends would come along and say, "well you must have unconfessed sin in your life." And if you do, then, by all means, confess it, but what if you have already confessed it all and you stand right with God?  Some would say, "well it must be a test, you know the teacher is always quiet during a test!" Perhaps it is a test of some sort, but the kind of silence I am talking about is the kind where your not even sure the teacher is in the building.

I bring this subject up because this is what I've been experiencing as of late, complete silence. It hurts, it is not normal for my relationship with God, it is scary, I feel alone. I have confessed my sins, I feel I am right before God, I have prayed, begged, pleaded, gotten angry, cried and repeated this process for a while now, but still... silence.

I started to take inventory of my prayers prior to the silence. I'm just being real and honest here friends, the list goes something like this, God, I need, I want, will you do this for me, fix this, give me this and that, oh and bless the poor and heal the sick. Hmmm, could this have anything at all to do with the silence? In Psalm 37:4-5 it says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act." So if this verse is true why doesn't God just give me all the things I pray and ask him to do? Well, it's in the first part of the verse, delight yourself in the Lord.

Delight yourself in the Lord, when we, when I delight myself in the Lord, the desires of my heart change. Our desires shift from earthly desires to heavenly desires. My prayers change, they change from me, and what I want, to Lord I only want you and your will and what pleases you. Now, as I write this, the silence has not completely broken, as my ah-ha moment has just happened. I was listening to some music on my phone and a song that I love and sing often came on and I listened closer this time. Natalie Grant, "More Than Anything," the song says something like this, Help me want the Healer more than the healing, help me want the Savior more than the Saving, Help me want you Jesus, more than anything.  If you get a chance to pull that song up on Pandora, YouTube, or wherever you listen to music and listen to all the words. I think it could very well be the answer to the silence.

Jesus, help us to delight ourselves in you, help us to commit our ways unto you. Help us to want you more than anything.