When God Feels Silent

If Heaven Has Gone Quiet

You prayed, and nothing happened. You keep praying, and the words seem to stop at the ceiling. You open your Bible, and it lies flat on the page. Other people talk about God as if He were in the room, and you smile and say nothing. Maybe this has gone on for months. Maybe you have stopped telling anyone, because you are afraid of what it says about you.

We are so sorry. This is one of the loneliest places a believer can stand. But you are not the first to stand here. Many of God's people have, and some of their prayers are in your Bible.

We cannot tell you why this is happening to you. We do not know, and we will not pretend. We can tell you what God has said. It is less than we would like, and it is enough to stand on.

Honest Lament Is Prayer

The Bible does not hide this from you. God put these prayers in His own Book, so you would have words for nights like this.

“How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”PSALM 13:1–2 · KJV

Four times in two verses David says how long. He is not polite about it. He talks as if God has forgotten him. That was how it felt, so that was what he prayed. God kept the prayer.

You do not have to clean up your prayers first. David says, pour out your heart before him (Psalm 62:8). He already knows. Tell Him you are angry. Tell Him you feel nothing. Tell Him you do not want to pray tonight. Feelings are honest witnesses and poor guides, so we tell them to God and then come back to what He has said. David did. But I have trusted in thy mercy (Psalm 13:5). Nearly all the psalms of lament end with a choice like that one.

The Psalm That Stays Dark

One does not. Psalm 88, by Heman the Ezrahite, has no turn at the end. Its last line is, Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness (Psalm 88:18). If you have felt that you must feel better by the end of your prayer, this psalm is for you. God kept this one too.

Look how it begins: O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee (Psalm 88:1). This man could not see God or feel Him, and he was still calling Him God of my salvation. In the dark, that is faith.

Job

God Himself called Job a perfect and an upright man (Job 1:8). Job lost nearly everything, and heaven said nothing, chapter after chapter. I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me (Job 30:20).

“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”JOB 23:8–10 · KJV

Job could not find God. He was sure God could find him. That is enough for a long night. When God finally spoke, He corrected Job, and the book never says He told him about the scene in heaven. He gave him Himself: now mine eye seeth thee (Job 42:5). And He said Job's friends, with their tidy explanations, have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath (Job 42:7).

And Others

• Habakkuk. O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! (Habakkuk 1:2). God's answer was harder than the silence, and the prophet took his post to wait (Habakkuk 2:1). He ended with empty fields in view: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD (Habakkuk 3:18).
• Lamentations. Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through (Lamentations 3:44). That is your ceiling, in Scripture. Hope came in the ruins, by remembering: This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope (Lamentations 3:21).

Silence Is Not Abandonment

What you feel is real. It is not the final truth. Your feelings can tell you where you are. They cannot tell you where God is.

God is everywhere, at all times. David asked, whither shall I flee from thy presence? (Psalm 139:7). At times He also makes His nearness plain, so that you know you have met with Him. Those times come and go. His presence does not. In a dry season you have lost the sense of His nearness. You have not lost Him.

“I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”HEBREWS 13:5 · KJV

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”ROMANS 8:38–39 · KJV

Paul lists everything he can think of. He does not promise that you will always feel God's love. He promises that nothing can separate you from it.

He Was Forsaken so You Would Not Be

David once prayed, O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not (Psalm 22:2). On the cross Jesus prayed the first line of that psalm: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). This was more than a feeling. God hath made him to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), and the Son bore the wrath of God and experienced the forsakenness our sins deserve, in our place. He did not stop being God, and the Trinity did not come apart. We stand at a distance here and worship (see The Trials and the Cross).

When you say, “God has forsaken me,” you are telling Him how it feels. When Jesus said it, He was bearing it. He was forsaken so that no one who trusts Him ever will be. And the psalm itself goes on to say that the LORD heard: when he cried unto him, he heard (Psalm 22:24).

God Has Already Spoken

We are not waiting for a voice from the sky. God Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son (Hebrews 1:2), and His Word is in your hands. After Malachi, four hundred years passed with no prophet. Yet Israel had the Word (Malachi 4:4), and God was at work. When the fulness of the time came, He sent His Son (Galatians 4:4; see Between the Testaments). Silent is not the same as absent.

There is also a side you cannot see. Daniel mourned and sought God for three weeks with no answer. Then a messenger came and told him, thy words were heard, and that they had been heard from the first day (Daniel 10:12). We cannot say that is what is happening to you. It does show that a delay is not the same as not being heard.

Love Waited Two Days

“Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.”JOHN 11:5–6 · KJV

Read that slowly. The sisters had sent word, he whom thou lovest is sick (John 11:3). What came back was silence, and then a funeral. Martha said what you may have said: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died (John 11:21). He did not scold her. He told her who He is: I am the resurrection, and the life (John 11:25). He asked where they had laid him, and Jesus wept (John 11:35).

We understand John to be telling us that the delay did not come in spite of His love. Jesus knew what He was doing (John 11:4), and the sisters did not. You may not know either. Not every grave opens in this life. But the One who waited is the One who wept, and He is holding you now.

Is This Because of My Sin?

Most people in this place ask that question. It deserves an honest answer, and the answer has two parts.

Not Every Silence Is Caused by Sin

“Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.”ISAIAH 50:10 · KJV

Look who this is. He feareth the LORD. He obeyeth. And he walketh in darkness, and hath no light. God does not tell him to find out what he did wrong. He tells him to trust, and to lean his weight on his God. Job was upright. Paul prayed three times, and the answer was, My grace is sufficient for thee (2 Corinthians 12:9). Darkness is not proof of disobedience.

Sin Can Hinder Prayer

Scripture also says this, so we will too. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me (Psalm 66:18). To regard iniquity is to hold on to it and want to keep it. Isaiah told a rebellious people, your sins have hid his face from you (Isaiah 59:2). Peter says the way a husband treats his wife can hinder his prayers (1 Peter 3:7). James says some ask amiss (James 4:3).

So ask once, honestly, before God: Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalm 139:23). Is there something you know about and are holding on to? Have you let prayer and the Word go because you chose other things? If He shows you something, confess it. He is faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9), and He always hears that prayer.

If you know you have walked away, hear this plainly. God has promised never to leave His own (Hebrews 13:5). If you turned your back on Him, He is not the one who moved. That is good news, because you know where to find Him. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you (James 4:8). See The Way Back.

If nothing comes to mind, stop digging. You do not have to invent a sin to explain your pain. If you are in Christ, God is not punishing you. Christ bore that. A loving Father may correct His child, and He does not hide the reason in order to torment you.

If you have never trusted Christ, there is one prayer He has promised to answer today. He died for your sins and rose again. Trust Him alone, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13).

What to Keep Doing

None of this requires you to feel anything. Faith in a dry season looks very plain. You just keep walking.

1. Keep praying, even one line. Men ought always to pray, and not to faint (Luke 18:1). Pray a psalm if you have no words. When you cannot pray at all, the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us (Romans 8:26), and Christ ever liveth to make intercession (Hebrews 7:25). You are being prayed for in the silence.
2. Keep opening the Word. Read it out loud. It is God's Word whether you feel it or not.
3. Stay with God's people. Sit in church when you feel nothing, and let them sing when you cannot (Hebrews 10:24–25).
4. Remember. I will remember the works of the LORD (Psalm 77:11). Write down what God has already done for you.
5. Write your own lament. Say how long. Say what hurts. Then, if you can, say that you will keep trusting Him.
6. Care for your body. Exhaustion, illness, and depression can make God feel far away. The angel of the LORD told tired Elijah, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee (1 Kings 19:7). See a doctor if this has lasted (see When You Are Depressed).
7. Tell someone. Tell your pastor and one friend. You should not carry this alone.
8. Obey what you already know. Do not wait to feel it. Faith often grows in the doing.

What Not to Conclude

In the dark, the mind reaches for explanations. Some of them are lies. Here are the ones to refuse.

• “God has left me.” He said He never will. He does not break His word because you cannot feel it.
• “God does not love me.” The cross has already answered that (Romans 5:8).
• “I must not be saved.” Assurance rests on His promise, not on your feelings (1 John 5:13). See Knowing You Are Saved.
• “I have lost my faith.” Doubt is not apostasy, and someone who has stopped caring does not lie awake over this. See When You Have Doubts.
• “Prayer does not work.” Prayer is not telling God what to do. Some say He always answers yes, no, or not yet. That may be true, and a “not yet” can still feel exactly like silence.
• “I just need more faith.” If someone tells you that, remember Paul's thorn. You have not failed (see Televangelism and the Word of Faith).
• “I need a new word from God.” You have His Word. Be careful of anyone who promises you a private one.

You may never hear the reason in this life. The secret things belong unto the LORD our God (Deuteronomy 29:29). God reigns, and God is good. He permits what He does not approve, and He sets the limits of every trial (see The Sovereignty of God and Suffering and Trials). You can leave the question open and still trust the One who has shown you His hands.

One Small Step for Today

You do not have to feel God tonight. You only have to take one small step toward Him.

Here it is. Open to Psalm 13. Read it out loud, slowly, and make it your own prayer. Then send your pastor or a friend you trust a short message: “God feels far away. Would you pray for me?”