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God´s silence

The Asbury Journal 67/2:4-7 © 2012 Asbury Theological Seminary God} Silence: Psalm 28 A Prayer for Help (l)To you, 0 Lord, I call; my Rock, do not refuse to hear me. For if you are silent to me, I shall be like those who go do\VIl to the Pit. (2)Hear the voice of my supplication, as I cry to you for help, As I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary. I know that I am probably not alone in sometimes experiencing God's silence. Sometimes when I want----ffideed, need-to hear Goo speak, I hear nothing. I am curious to know how to deal \Vith it? How do you avoid letting God's silence take you do\VIl into the Pit, as the Psalmist describes it? Because God's silence, in our times of great need, can bring us low. First, a distinction: There are two reasons for us not hearing God. For some, they do not hear God because they do not believe that God speaks, or that if God speaks, he does not speak to them. They may not believe that God exists-so there is nothing out there to hear. The Bible has a phrase to describe these people who do not hear God speak. The Bible says that they "do not have ears to hear." (e.g. Matthew 11:15,13:19) They do not hear because something is wrong \Vith their psychic or spiritual hearing equipment. Or, as they would put it, they do not hear because everything is right \Vith their psychic or spiritual hearing equipment. Today the most well knO\VIl of those who have no ears to hear are the so-called new atheists. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dermett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, among others, are convinced both that God does not exist and that those who believe that God does exist are sadly deluded. It does not surprise the new atheists that Godis silent, because there is no God. People who do not hear God are the sane ones, they believe. For others, we do not hear God because God has chosen to be silent. The problem is not \Vith our hearing equipment. We do have ears to hear. We have used those ears often to hear God's soothing, encouraging, and helpful voice. But sometimes we do not hear because God does not speak. We have ears to hear, but God is silent. It is these people-most of you I would imagine-those who have ears to hear, that I am addressing. 4 MucK.: GOD'S SILENCE I 5 Second, a declaration: God is sometimes silent. Some of our Christian confreres do not want to admit God's silence. I make great use of a study Bible called the MVThematic Reference Stu4J Bible (Zondervan 1999) edited by an excellent evangelical theologian, Alister McGrath. In the appended 729-page thematic section, McGrath identifies hillldreds of words and themes, and lists after each theme all the Bible verses he thinks pertain to those themes. Itis like a concordance on steroids. Silence is one of the themes McGrath identifies, but in defining silence, McGrath declares that "Scripture stresses that God is not silent." (1796) I do not agree \.V.i.th McGrath on this point. The Bible tells us that Jesus, God incarnate, used silence often. He was silent in the face of the illlfair judgment of the high priest (Matthew 26:63), before Pilate (Matthew 27:14), and in an audience \.V.i.thHerod (Luke 23:9). Jesus was also silent in the face of being confronted by the Pharisees. This silence made his disciples illlcomfortable: ''\Xlhy did you not answer them," they asked? My 0\VIl experience of God reinforces the teachings of scripture and the apparently \.V.i.despread hwnan experience of God's silence. My experience teaches me that Godis silent. Often I do hear God's voice. Obviously, I must have ears to hear. Yet when I strain to catch his voice, God does not speak. God is sometimes silent. Third, an evaluation: God's silence, for those who have ears to hear, is a good thing. One way to look at God's silence is as a teaching tool God uses to help us grow in faith. God's son Jesus, for exmnple, answered specific questions brought to him in different ways. Some he answered relatively straightforwardly. Others he answered by telling a story; sometimes the story was a bit oblique and hard to understand W':ithout faith. And finally, Jesus sometimes "answered" questions bynot answering them, by remaining silent. :Might we conclude that Jesus chose his method based on what was most likely to bring glory to God the Father and his overall purposes? The idea that we are sometimes best served in our faith by going through a difficult time of testing, a dark night of the soul, is not an illlcommon idea. Jesus himself spent a testing time in the \.V.i.lderness. \Xlhen I was reading A.N. Wilson's Gods Funeral recently, I was struck by his quoting from a Thomas Hardy poem: Yet it is a long pursuit, Carrying the junk and treasure of an ancient creed, To a love who keeps faith by seeming mute And deaf, and dead indeed. -"God's Fillleral," Collected Poems, 307. 6 I The Asbury Journal 67/2 (2012) Wilson comments, focusing on the line, "To a love that keeps faith by seeming mute," by saying this: "Wittgenstein [Ludwi.g] is famous for articulating [the] submission of [human] silence. Yet there is a different silence-and that is (also) part of the drama. It is the silence of God himself. The Bible is full of it." (14-15) I think this poem and Wilson's use of it tell us far more than simply writing it off to Hardy's palpable deism. Oswald Chmnbers, hardly a deist, sees God's silence as something of a test: "Has God trusted you wi.th his silence-----{l silence that has great meaning? God's silences are actually his answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? .. His silence is the sign that he is bringing you into an even more wonderful illlderstanding of himself." -My Utmost For His Highest I am 65 years of age. I have had enough years illlder my belt to do many foolish things. And it is fair to ask the question, \Xlhy did God not speak? \Xlhen I was con templa ring doing or saying something foolish, why did God not warn me off? And as I was doing something foolish, why did God so often not tell me to quit? And after I had done the foolish thing, was even perhaps suffering the inevitable consequences, why did God so rarely berate me? \X1hy did God just keep, silently, loving me as I had to work it out on my 0\VIl instead of rem:indingme, ''Terry, I told you this would happen if you disobeyed my teaching." Fourth, a testimony: God's silence does not mean that God has not heard God is not a constant chatterer, like a radio we can tum on anytime we want just to have some sOillld, any sOillld, filling the air. God's response to us is far more sophisticated than that. God is not our 0\VIl personal radio, wi.th an on/off swi.tch that we control. God speaks to us as he sees fit. He speaks to us when he sees fit. And when it serves his purposes, Godis silent. Chmnbers again: "A wonderful thing about God's silence is that his stillness is contagious-it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." God's silence is the very proof that he has. As long as you have the idea that God w1l1 always bless you in answer to prayer, he wi.ll do it, but he w1l1 never give you the grace of his silence." -My Utmost For His Highest MucK.: GOD'S SILENCE I 7 God's silence can indeed bring us low. It more often than we would like hurls us into the Pit. Yet can we not admit that itis in the Pit, and only in the Pit, that some of the most ilnportant spiritual lessons are learned? We can endure, indeed even embrace God's silence if we realize that even when God is silent he still hears. And sooner or later we realize that God hearing us is all we need. That is the Psalmist's testimony: Thanksgiving for It (Help) (6)Elessed be the Lord, for he has heard the sOillld of my pleadings. (7)The Lord is my strength and my shield; in hiln my heart trusts; So I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. * * * Correction In our Spring 2009 issue we published an essay, ((Justification ry Faith))): Richard Baxters Influence upon John Weslry.)) Due to an editing error, the essay was mistakenly attributed to Floyd T. Cunningham, president of Asia Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary. We apologize to Dr. Cunningham for the inconveniences this mistake has caused. We also apologize to Dr. Joseph W Curmingham of Eureka College who is the correct author of the essay. In order to etnphasize this correct attribution, we are republishing the essay in this issue with Dr. Joseph W Cunningham listed as the author. -Terry C Muck Edito