the years of silence

Hi. I’m impatient. I was told once that the amount of patience contained in my body wouldn’t be able to fill a thimble, but I don’t have time for such comments (see what I did there?). This past weekend I heard about am album by Eric Church, so when I went to the bathroom during the wedding reception I was attending I started the download and it was done before the brand new couple jumped in the back of the limo. I like that if I have questions I can look them up on my iPhone or someone else’s iPad or in general a computer if you’re not trendy enough. I need groceries? I’ll either steal my roommates or go immediately in my car and get them, no problem.

But I have this little problem. It is between me and God. And I may not be the only one. You see he doesn’t run off my time. Actually, according to me, he’s always late and has changed the plans. (If I was more emotional I’d rip my hair out.) But, like I said, I am not the only one who had to wait on God.


Lets look at some folks in the Bible:

We shall first look at Abram.

God: Leave your country.
Abram: Where are we going?
God: I’ll let you know when we are there.

And God was silent for a few years.... nothing....no words...no further confirmation to Abram that he STILL was doing the right thing.


Second we have Joseph.

Joseph spent his teens and early adult life pretty much a slave who’d continually get screwed over by people. He spent considerable time in prison looking as if his God couldn’t give a rats about him. When things looked promising his dreamed were crushed.


Third we have Moses.

Moses was a rich kid who killed someone and then ran away from it all. For something like 40 YEARS he did not hear from God once but lived a normal Middle Eastern life walking sheep around all day... kinda like he’d do later I guess.


Finally we have Naomi.

God strangely showed Naomi how much he loved her by causing a famine and killing her husband and two sons. For YEARS she remained bitter at God–she asked her friends to call her Bitter because she felt God demolished her. Years!! Years, people!! That is everyday I wake up and it is the first thing I think about: ‘God, what are you doing?!’ Or just coming to ignore God.


With all of these examples, though, God showed up. Where he promised he made good on the promises. Where he seemed to be unkind he unfolded time to reveal how he had been affectionately loving the whole way through.


Often we get the wrong idea of examples like these four. We look at them and wrongly conclude, ‘Well, dang it, if they can do it so can I!’ I hope your bootstraps break today. Seriously. We need to look at examples of people like this and be blown away at God. How he remains true to his word. He doesn’t need to constantly remind: he speaks and it is forever true. But he DOES constantly remind us that he is there, if we will see with faith and not feelings or visible manifestations.

Are you abandoned, confused, hurt, in the dark, feeling alone, feel like you just aren’t gonna make it another day, sensing that you can’t add up?

Cheer up, you’re worse than you figured.
But cheer up, God is greater and more good than you can imagine.

He is still with us.

Jesus went through the annuls of eternity and ate up all the records for those who would believe in him. But while he was doing that he was under God’s real silence and real abandonment. On our behalf Jesus willingly went through the worst absence of God’s goodness we could ever imagine. Now we get all the benefits of being God’s child. Jesus was struck brutally like a pinata in every way–spiritually physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically–and what came bursting out of him was eternal life and present joy for all who’d fall on his grace in need.

God owes us . . . nothing

I'm recently discovering (or rediscovering) the fact that God owes us, needs to give us, is obligated to provide . . . well nothing.

What do I mean when I say nothing?

God does not owe us:

1. Life: Here is the reality: we are not promised one more breath, one more heartbeat, one more blink of the eye. We are not promised that our cancer will miraculously (or by science) go away, that we will be saved from car wrecks, that we won't be the one who has that 'freak' accident in the safety of our own home. Just because you believe in God and follow Jesus--or not--does not make you invincible nor exempt from the reality of life, which is that people die a lot.

2. Laughter: No one is promised a 'good life.' It is hard for me, as an American, to get my head around this because I've assumed I am somehow due a good life, but find that in the Bible for me then I'll change my mind. What does this mean for day-to-day life? It means no one is promised good feelings . . . ever. No one is promised that we will laugh when something funny happens, that we will cry for joy, that we will get that job (let alone any job), that we can sing songs, that we will have a spouse and kids, that we will enjoy fine meals, that we can be wowed and refreshed by being outdoors, that anything will go 'right' or the way we wanted and planned, that praying will accomplish anything, that following the rules will get you anywhere, that breaking rules will summon excitement, that following your heart will work out, that following whatever 10-steps will accomplish their aim, that doing what people say will have its hoped for affect, that doing anything will illicit any kind of reaction in your soul. No one is promised anything of the sort.

So now that you're all glum and sporting a frowny-face, what does this mean? It means that when God--yes it is HIM--provides us the capacity and gift of pleasant things and the ability to feel rightly about these gifts.... enjoy the heck out of them. Cry when your baby is born. Laugh when your friend does something stupid. Eat that delicious dessert with happiness. Go celebrate when you get your job. It is SO good to have gifts and we should take them and embrace them . . . as gifts.

And whether we get this or that is not based on our good or bad behavior.

We are promised God. For those who follow him, we are told that we will always have God. We should not say, 'in his presence is fullness of joy so that means we should be happy all the time.' No, joy is not happiness. Joy is not feelings. Joy is a faith-based sense and belief and understanding that though we may never smile one more time, and we may spend the rest of our days in tears of sorrow God is still real, we are still his children, and Heaven will be full of the most explosive happiness and joy and good times we literally cannot fathom it.

Life is hard. Life is unbearable sometimes. Life can be too much. But often it is when we have everything but don't have the feeling we hoped for, it is then that we finally see we need God. Thankfully, for most, God is very kind in his provision and gift giving and occurrences in our life and we should thank him so much! But our belief in God and HIS GOODNESS should not be dependent upon what he provides day in and day out but on what he said and the now-unseen-reality he says is true.

The book of Job points this out and Job got it right when he said that God is truly good when he provides all kinds of great things or provides all of life to cease and die and be ripped away. Naomi was right she told her friends to stop calling her 'pleasant' but to call her 'bitter' because God killed her husband and two sons; she was a broken mess who still had a glimmer of hope in God.

It is crazy to understand that goodness is known in the darkest hour of your soul. That pain can walk beside God's favor. Joy accompanies stomach wrenching agony and confusion and frustration. The reality is that though he seems to not care one bit about you, God is not far off ever and he is always loving his children when it seems like he is ruining them. Love is peculiar and when we figure out what Paul proclaims in Romans 9-11--God does whatever he wants and he is always good in whatever he does because he IS wise and IS loving more than we can understand--we believe a scary and hard truth. Love is different than we think.