This post is a follow up on what God has been teaching since I threw my hearing aids in a lake in the middle of Thailand. So I recommend reading the post “When God Says to Wait” first if you haven’t yet.
God has continued to grow and teach me so much these past few weeks!
A few days after we got back from training camp at the ranch I couldn’t hear God anymore. And I got lost. I didn’t know what to do. The one thing I depended on was gone. The one thing I needed was gone. I got angry at God. I ranted out to Him saying
“God, you told me you’d be there for me. You told me that you would never leave me. If I can’t hear you than what do I have? Where are you?”
I was confused and I felt guilt. I thought that I did something to make God mad at me. I was ashamed to tell my squad and team that I couldn’t hear Him anymore. I was afraid of what they would say.
In this process I shut my squad out and I shut God out. And I had forgotten that God told me He was going to be silent for a reason and that He wanted me to be silent too.
How can it be so easy to forget God’s goodness? How come I couldn’t trust His silence? When did I start doubting again?
This went on for a couple days. Squad mates and leaders would ask how I’m doing and I would say “good!” I was good on the surface. But deep down inside I was miserable.
One day during a “Feedback” sessions I was challenged to speak up more and share what God has been telling me. It was hard getting that feedback because I wasn’t hearing anything from God. I thought how can I share something when God isn’t speaking?
Right after that session I grabbed my Bible, journal and ipod. Went somewhere alone (in the hostel) and put on worship music. I cried out to God. I was desperate for something from Him.
Then I heard Him. But it wasn’t through His voice.
He spoke to me through the music, through those who challenged me. He brought to mind memories of the past weeks. He brought to mind Bible stories and scripture. And He spoke to me through His silence.
I heard God in His silence.
It was like God opened a gate and everything that He’s been telling me the past few days came rushing out. I was jotting everything down in my journal. I was so overwhelmed by Him.
He was speaking to me all along! I just wasn’t willing to listen in silence and I wasn’t willing to listen to Him in any other way besides His voice. I was acting like a stubborn goat. Looking back at it now, I see that I was doing too much talking (to God) and not enough listening. I had hardened my heart in anger when He became silent and I panicked and got scared.
God brought to mind a story from the Bible.
Jesus and the disciples were out in a boat.
“And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”” Mark 4.
I wonder what would have happened if the disciples had faith and didn’t get scared? They had Jesus with them physically. What if they had simply trusted Him and His silence in that storm?
What would have happened if I had just trusted God that what He was doing was for the best? What if I simply had faith that He was still there and hadn’t forgotten me?
Sometimes I can hear God’s voice and sometimes He speaks in other ways. I just need to be willing and silent to hear Him.
What God was teaching me in all of this is that I need all of God. I had come to depend on God for just His voice. But I need His love. I need His grace. I need His mercy. I need His joy. I need all of God as He is. And I also need His silence.
God is at work all the time. He is with me constantly. I’m learning that when it gets hard I just need to take a moment and remember who God is and who I am. God has been so incredibly faithful to me! Not for a moment have I been forgotten. Once I’ve looked back at my life I am filled with gratefulness for what He has done. And I know without a doubt that in each season of life, He is preparing me for something that’s to come.
Some days are harder than others. But God is faithful. And He has given Himself to me through His Son, Jesus Christ. I am His and that’s enough for me.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
Hebrews 3
