In the Silence

A lot of bad things can happen in the silence. In the silence you cannot allow others in. In the silence you can get paranoid. In the silence you can start believing lies—you start “listening to yourself rather than talking to yourself.” But silence, on the other hand, is a thing I crave because I can’t really hear God’s voice unless I get alone and still. But still there is a silence that is rather bewildering and perplexing and we all know what it feels like—it feels like Monday morning!On Sunday everything seems so clear—we hear the gospel, rejoice with a few hundred of our friends, we sense God’s presence with us, and we are certain of what his message is for us for the next week. Then, once Monday morning comes and you begin going into your own personal context trying to live out the faithful presence of the gospel, all those great abstract ideas about God don’t make sense anymore. What does it mean to follow Jesus in this work situation? What does it mean to bring this area of my life under the Lordship of Jesus? What can I really do to make a gospel impact in this unique situation? All these questions, which seemed so simple on Sunday, leave you utterly bewildered throughout the week.To further complicate the problem, you then pray about how to apply the gospel to a certain part of your life and you get no answer—now what do you do? What do you do when God is silent? I think most people just do nothing, but I don’t think this is what God expects of us. Interestingly enough, we are not left to wonder what our obedience should look like because our text this week deals with this perplexing situation!So I hope you will join us this Sunday as we watch the disciples and see what they do when God is silent and there is neither word of comfort nor encouragement. Sound familiar? I thought so. I hope to see you Sunday.Blessings,Jim