Saturday, November 8, 2008

WHEN GOD DOESN'T ANSWER

Numbers 14:1-15:16; Mark 14:53-72; Psalm 53:1-6; Proverbs 11:4

 “Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night….  ‘Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt? ...Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed.’”

 “Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, ‘…What is your verdict?’  ‘Guilty!’ they all cried. ‘He deserves to die!’  Then some of them began to spit at him, and they blindfolded him and beat him with their fists. ‘Prophesy to us,’ they jeered. And the guards slapped him as they took him away.”

“Oh, that salvation would come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel!  When God restores his people, Jacob will shout with joy, and Israel will rejoice.”

“Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed.”  This is a prayer for the ages.  Much depends on the tone read into it, but there is a fundamental, nearly instinctive, truth to the words, regardless. I wonder, for example, during the scourging of Jesus, if maybe one soldier truly wanted Jesus to prophesy, longing to hear the word of a compassionate God in the middle of all that inhumanity.  As long as there has been a concept of God in the human psyche, there has been a fundamental desire to see Him in action, to have Him rescue, heal and save.

However, we are intellectually dishonest and denying Scripture to claim that God always answers.  Some try to finesse the point by claiming His “answer” in such situations is just “wait.”  Sometimes, that is the answer, but other times, it’s just silence.  We need to learn to live with and within that silence if we are going to be the people God calls us to be. Yet who is comfortable in a silent relationship?  It seems a contradiction in itself.  How can there even be relationship in silence?  What is the Spirit trying to teach us through silence? 

Having recently fought through such a quiet time myself, I think the Spirit uses silence to teach us reliance.  It should not surprise me – but always does – that I am usually the initiator of such a silence.  Intentionally or not, I quit listening to God.  I may still be making demands of Him, but I am not pausing for a reply.  I may be raging at Him.  Or, I am off doing my own thing. The bottom line remains that I initiate God’s silence by asserting my independence from Him, or by presuming to tell Him what to do.  Why would anyone respond to that?  It is pretty obvious my greatest need then is not for instruction; I need first to truly hear myself and understand the effect of my thoughts and words.  Eventually, left in quiet, most of us run out of words.  We come to realize we do not have the answers, and no amount of work is going to get us over the problem.  That is the point we choose – either bitterness and disillusionment, or a radical new reliance on God, despite His silence.

What are we to do with a God who is silent?  Scripture says we should rely on Him even more.  It sounds illogical, but it is not.  I don’t know why it works, but it does.  I guess the Father simply loves us enough to allow us to fail on our own terms, if that is what it takes to get us to surrender to Him on Christ’s terms.

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