When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in
the place where He was. —John 11:6
“Has God trusted you with His silence— a 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? God will give you the very blessings you ask
if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that
He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are
you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? […] The
actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God’s sovereignty.
Time is nothing to God. […] If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the
understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will
give you the first sign of His intimacy— silence.” CHAMBERS
Is it possible for you to sit
in a room with your spouse and neither of you say a word and yet there is a
closeness that can only come from an intimate relationship with each
other. I am not referring to the spouse
who never speaks, but those times when words are not necessary, the presence of
each other’s company is rich and satisfying.
And if it is not possible, I pray that it will be some day.
When God is silent, when He does not respond
to your prayer there are three possibilities.
First, you have approached God
with sin on your heart. Like Jesus told Peter,
(John 13:10) we don’t need our whole
body washed again, just our feet. You need to “wash your feet” before you
attempt to stand in the presence of a holy God. (1 John 1:9) Second, you
have asked God to help you satisfy your lust for something. (James
4:2-3) “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so
that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Third,
God has answered with “no” or “wait”. (John
11:6) The question is how do we
respond to His silence? Are we willing to accept God’s answer or do we resent
Him for not giving us what we want? Is
God’s silence enough of an answer? Or do you demand more? Is your life typified by “Lord give me what I
want or else!” or are you like the tax collector?
(Luke 18:9-14) “To some who
were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else,
Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee
and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God,
I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or
even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I
get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a
distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said,
‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the
other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will
be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” As Christians, God has already given us more
than we deserve, answered prayer, no matter how it's answered, is icing on the cake. ELGIN
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