How Do Disciples Respond When God Appears Silent?
How do you respond to God’s apparent
silence? The Psalter asks this
penetrating question of faith. The
opening verses of Psalm 22 teaches us that hard questions are necessary in the
journey of discipleship. “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from
my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day and you do not answer, by night but
I find no rest.” Instead of being
disrespectful and sacrilegious, these questions reflect a deeply intimate
relationship between God and the Psalter.
In addition to David, other notable biblical characters including Hagar,
Gideon, Job and Jeremiah ask similar tough questions. God’s inactivity and absence contradicts
everything they were taught about His character and power. Giants in the history of Christendom like
Charles Spurgeon, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. respectively pondered
God’s inertia during industrialization, worldwide poverty in the prosperous
twentieth century and intractable American Southern segregation. Average disciples ask their personal versions
of the Psalmist’s provocative questions.
Are there times when your life’s circumstances equate with incontrovertible
evidence that Almighty God has forsaken you? If yes, how do you respond?
These startling questions are so aptly worded
that they speak for any disciple experiencing a difficult time. The Psalmist straightforwardly asks God, “Why
have you forsaken me?’ Immediately,
childhood Sunday School lessons resound within our ears. “God does not leave nor does He forsake
anyone who believes in Him.” There are
as many Old Testament verses that affirm this assertion as there are New Testament
ones. Consider Deuteronomy 31:8 and
Joshua 1:8. Still, lingering unemployment compounded by sporadic health
challenge and accompanying medical bills and intractable age discrimination
combine to eclipse God’s presence. Then,
there is mounting bewilderment when a disciple prays fervently only to see his
situation worsen. How do you explain
that irony? How does a disciple pray
faithfully and earnestly for God’s favorable intervention only to be on the
receiving end of further silence and indifference? Asking about being forsaken by God seems a
reasonable response. The Psalter also
asks what explains God’s delay in saving him from drowning in the quicksand of
emotion and being overwhelmed by the sudden and formidable rush of mighty
waters. What is the distance between the
Psalter’s laments and shouts of anguish?
It is as if he sits and cries burning, angry, salty and countless tears
and God does nothing. After a while,
those tears turn into bitterness and cynicism.
If God is indeed loving, gracious, kind and faithful, how can He be so
indifferent to the Psalter’s pain and suffering?
Chances are billions of disciples
relate daily to the Psalter’s feelings as they survive a global pandemic. With the deaths of more than 260,000 Americans
and comparable losses in other countries, grief and loss form a huge canopy
over the Earth in the year 2020. Death
on the macro level inevitably becomes death on the micro level. Each of these decedents belonged to families.
Easily, bereavement permeates the lives of millions and tens of millions of
citizens. Those dark clouds block the
sunlight of divine grace. More
personally, they intensify feelings of demoralization. In lesser concerns, some disciples linger in
the morass of aimlessness and agony. These
despairing feelings eventuate in feelings of mutual contempt. God’s apparent absence and silence breeds
such harsh feelings in a disciple as he suspects God has shown equal contempt
for the disciple. The Psalter indicts God
with his eloquence. “My God, I cry out
by day and you do not answer, by night but I find no rest.” Contemporarily, the Psalter views his life as
a cruel joke by day and a never-ending nightmare during the hours of the
evening.
Adamantly, I detest and resist the
current impulses in Christian circles to squash questioning. People who refuse to entertain hard questions
of faith tend to characterize fellow believers who do as weak, insubordinate and
faithless. In some instances, fellow
disciples yell at people who question God and biblical truths when their lives
are incongruent with traditional spiritual promises. Nevertheless, the Psalter’s questions were
not accidentally included in the Bible. There
are times when disciples rightly resolve that God has forsaken them. The corollary question remains, “How do
disciples respond when God appears silent?”
As much as I disregard an unwillingness to wrestle with complexities,
ironies, contradictions and mystery in believing in God, I disdain simplistic
formulas and uninformed cliches. Simple
answers rarely satisfy complex questions.
To that end, I offer several
experiential suggestions in response to the Psalter’s question. First, gratitude always yields an affirming perspective. Thankfulness focuses upon what a person earns
and appreciates as opposed to concentrating upon what a person lacks. Dwelling upon what is missing hardly
emboldens anyone. It forces disciples to
compare themselves and their situations with other people. As everyone is unique, personal differences
are not comparable. Consequently,
acceptance of life’s realities is the first step towards resolving challenges. Acceptance creates open-mindedness to God’s
guidance and counsel from other disciples.
Third, clearing the mind and heart of resentments, failure to forgive
and other toxic emotions is necessary to become a channel of God’s love and
peace. Harboring poisonous emotions and
thoughts distorts a disciple’s perspective.
This regrettable state of mind prevents personal growth and spiritual
progress. Like cannibals who feed upon
their own kind, negativity consumes the mind, heart and soul of its
bearer. Refusal to forgive victimizers
particularly eats away at personal health, peace and well-being.
Fourth, visualization of brighter, more
rewarding and joyous days avoids paralysis and possible depression. A disciple in crisis does not have to remain interminably
in that predicament. Envisioning the
future with expectancy and hope are practical spiritual tools of progressing
beyond today’s struggles. Those
spiritual disciplines are components of resilience which propels disciples toward
mission, purpose and destiny. Finally,
hope as borne of affirmations spoken aloud, listening to music and hearing
other people’s experiences of spirituality and faithful endurance is a
powerfully stabilizing force when living through difficult and inexplicable
days. The belief that a disciple’s life
can and will be better sustains him as he travels through “the valley of the
shadow of death.” Elsewhere, the Psalter
boldly proclaims, “I am still confident of this, I will see the goodness of the
Lord in the land of the living.”
Summarily, he responds to God’s apparent absence and indifference with
reaffirming God’s faithfulness which the Psalter wholeheartedly believes will
emerge.
