God Speaks Through The Silence
Speaking through Silence
The devout atheist, Bertrand Russell, once was asked, “When you die, if you discover that God does indeed exist, what will you say?” To which he responded, “I will tell him, ‘You, sir, did not give enough evidence for me to believe.'” Russell lived through two world wars, the rise of the atomic bomb, and many other horrific events. Through it all, the silence of God struck him as evidence of His nonexistence.
Russell is not alone. Christians and unbelievers alike have struggled with making sense of the silence of God. After C.S. Lewis’ wife died, he wrote in his journal, “Why is [God] so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?” I am sure all of us have experienced times of crying out to God, searching to find His voice, longing for some assurance that He is with us only to find a void. It may not cause us to doubt His existence, but silence can do much to distort our perception of God and His word significantly.
Admittedly, when we cry out to God and do not hear His voice in return, something seems not right. For God, however, His silence is not always a sign of His displeasure or lack of empathy. As we look at scripture, we find God often works and speaks through silence.
Silence shapes faith
In Genesis 16 – 17, after God called Abraham and Sarah to leave their home, family, friends, country, and security to an unknown land, He did something unusual. He went silent. For 13 years, God did not say a word. We do not know precisely why God did this. However, given the context in Genesis 16, it seems evident that God was shaping Abraham’s faith. In Genesis 16, Abraham placed faith in himself. After 13 years of silence, Abraham was ready to put his faith in God. I do not mean this to sound as if God was punishing Abraham. Instead, God was emptying Abraham of his ego, pride, and self-confidence so that he could learn to trust God fully.
God’s silence may be God’s way of shaping our faith, as well. Perhaps, like Abraham, He is emptying us of our ego, pride, and self-confidence for us to learn to depend on Him. Possibly, He could be teaching us patience or endurance. Silence does not mean God is necessarily absent. In fact, it may mean He is intimately working to shape and form us.
Silence can be God’s Megaphone
It might seem paradoxical, but silence is often God’s boisterous means of grabbing our attention. One only needs to read through the book of Job to see this effect at work. Job knew something of stress and suffering, yet through it all, God remained silent. His friends, on the other hand, were full of noise. The one person Job needed to hear from was God. By the end, Job was desperate, so when God spoke, Job was ready to listen.
When I was in High School, God began calling me to ministry. I was not ready to listen. I had other dreams and a different agenda. God used a series of events in my life to grab my attention. One of those was His silence. I remember feeling immense frustration at His lack of guidance and interaction. However, when God finally spoke, I was all ears. God’s silence might be His way of getting our attention or of warning us that something is not right. It may be His way of making us so desperate to hear Him that when He finally speaks, we are sure to listen.
Silence is Necessary to Listen
When my wife and I were first married, she would tell me a problem, and my natural reaction was to offer her advice on how to fix her dilemma. Little did I know at the time, that was not what she was looking for from me. She wanted me to “listen.” I was “listening.” I also offered her my pearls of wisdom, which she interpreted as a lack of attention. When I finally went silent, she at long last felt as if I was listening. I have to confess; I still do not fully understand how silence is better. Nevertheless, I have learned silence equals listening in her book.
The person on the receiving end of a message has to be quiet to truly listen. Sometimes, God is mute, not because He does not care about us, but because He truly cares and listens to us. John makes it clear in his epistle that when we pray, God hears us: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: . . . he hears us” (1 John 5.14). Perhaps God is silent because He is letting us talk.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch once wrote, “whoever has understood our Lord’s words, understands his silence, because God is known in his silence.” Has God been unusually silent with you? Do not lose heart. This is not a sign of God’s absence or His lack of empathy. Indeed, it is probably a sign that God is either listening or is Himself speaking through His stillness. Instead of losing heart, when God is quiet, the question we need to ask is, ‘what is God saying to us through the silence?’
In Christ,
Fr. Chase