by Max Andrew Dubinsky
I paced up and down the front steps of the porch, biting my thumbnail until there was nothing left to chew but skin. The anxiety in my gut was like someone had slammed a knife in my side and left me for dead.
I needed answers. I needed to come out on top. I needed to be right.
Because soon I was going to confronted. There would be accusations, and I was going to have to stand my ground. I wanted to have things my way with my accuser. Both myself and the woman I love were under attack. I needed to defend. To protect. As I waited for my turn to speak, I became angry. I prayed. I prayed for God to give me the words to say. I wanted my anger to be seen in full force. I wanted the last punch, the last word, the last laugh.
When I finished praying, I heard nothing in response.
Blood pumped through my veins with the force a freight train.
Where was God? Why was He saying nothing? He couldn’t possibly leave me like that, could He? One of his children was struggling. Surely He’d come up with something good for me to say so I could prove myself.
I picked up the phone, my sweaty thumbs slipping over the numbers as I dialed four different men in my life. I needed a voice I could trust. I needed someone to talk me down.
But not one of them answered.
And God remained silent.
I was on my own.
“I’ve been talking to God all week,” a friend of mine told me recently. “But He hasn’t said a thing.”
He told me he felt challenged by God’s existence. When I asked him why, he answered, “Well, I pulled a Gideon. I asked God to show up. I asked God to prove Himself to me that it was Him out there. To give me a sign it’s really Him orchestrating all this.”
All this?
“Yeah. This life.”
And?
“And nothing.”
Nothing?
“The whole week went by. I didn’t hear a thing.”
“I can’t hear God,” he concluded.
Then you’re not really listening.
God always answers, one way or another, even when people don’t recognize His presence. – Job 33:14
Because He is talking to you every. single. day.
God is all around us. He is jumping up and down. He is throwing His in the air, shouting your name to get your attention. He is competing with all the noise filling up our world. How can we expect to hear from God when our lives are so cluttered with things that are not of God? We are busy with television, cell phones, and music; the Internet, friends, and the opinions of others. And if our lives are filled with this noise, that’s precisely where we would start expecting God to show up.
For the silence has grown uncomfortable.
On that front porch, pacing, praying, and waiting, I heard nothing but silence. God was absent. The first thing I did, I picked up my phone to hear some noise. And when the time came for confrontation, I lost. I had nothing. I was talked into a corner, and made myself look like a fool. I had no answers, and everything I said only confirmed my accuser’s suspicions of me.
“Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” Kings 19:11-12
It wasn’t until the aftermath, when the anger and noise had finally settled, that I heard God’s voice.
“Who were you trying to prove yourself to on the porch today? To your supposed enemies, or Me? Who do you answer to at the end of the day? Me, or those around you? Who gets the final judgement? Your friends, or me?”
My anger was self-righteous. I asked God for words to speak that would only glorify me and not Him. “You wanted words that would make you proud, confident, and in control. But you are not the one in control here. I am. Glory in this life is not yours to be had. It is mine.”
I wanted the last word. I wanted to be the hero of the situation, and protect the woman I love. I wanted to speak out of anger. Instead I should have been speaking out of love, asking, “God, how can I speak to this person to best represent You and Your heart?” instead of, “God, fuel my anger with your words.”
God was silent for me that afternoon, and it wasn’t until the silence settled that I realized God had been speaking all along.
He answered me by remaining silent. Because He needed me to remain silent too.
Just because you haven’t heard God’s voice today, doesn’t mean He isn’t talking.
Sometimes when God is silent, He is speaking the loudest.
Max Andrew Dubinsky is a writer. He lives on the road and seeks God in the streets outside of the church. He blogs about it every Wednesday on Make It MAD
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for this, Max. It was an excellent reminder. How often have I been on that porch, wanting God to help me justify myself, my life, my actions….this was solid truth. Blessings, and Congrats to you and Lauren. God is amazing, and your story is a testimony to His awesomeness
Very good. So much truth on many levels. I’ve felt God calling me to quiet lately so I can hear him better. I’m having to be reminded every day, though.
“God, how can I speak to this person to best represent You and Your heart?”
Can you imagine the shift in conversation dynamics if all of us took up this prayer? Our words to each other, to the people we love and to our neighbors and to our enemies … If I could lean more into surrendering my right-ness and my last word and my superiority and dwell in submission to conveying His heart to those around us. How radical would that be?
YES. ohmyword, megan. thank you for giving me Truth this morning.
That’s been my prayer the last month or so. “God, help me to be myself and to represent you well.” It calms and centers me but more importantly, I’ve been blown away by the conversations that have resulted.
i love this so much. thank you for reminding me of all the ways God is speaking especially in the silence and that so often i try to turn it and make it about me instead of about Him.
this morning when i woke up {and this past week in general} i’ve felt a tremendous pull toward quiet reflection. it scares me to death sometimes – the quiet. but this post reminded me of the Truth that our Father is good and faithful and pursues us in all kinds of different ways – even in the quiet. thank you, max. i’m so grateful for how He’s using you and speaking through you.
great post max! well said. more and more i’m confronted with the fact that we live in a noisy world and what would most often benefit us is silence and stillness. thank you for reminding me again.
Excellent as always! I’ve become a fan of yours.
Max you are a force of love that often overwhelms me with your words of truth…that arrive just when I need them which means God is speaking to me loudly through you. I myself had a screaming match last night where no one won. I lost or rather let God go in the situation instead of giving him my pain. I feel shame today but hope that the quiet will soften my rough edges. That God will lift me and His words will fall from my mouth when I apologize. Thanks for this.
Wow!! This hit me in my gutt and blessed me all at the same time. Thank you, thank you!
Lord, help me find contentment in Your silence.
Amen, brother! I sometimes wonder this myself, but it’s only after the situation has cooled and I’ve had time to reflect that I see how God was acting. And sometimes I never see, but that’s okay too, on this side of heaven. I will be definitely be rereading this post and passing it around. Thank you for your insight!
I needed to read this today. Thank you so much…
Love this Max.
“Sometimes when God is silent, He is speaking the loudest.”
It’s so true, so hard to hear in all the noise.
Wow, what a powerful & necessary reminder. Thank you for sharing these truths!
I recently listened to a bible study that said something similar. He was talking about the time of the Judges and said, “We never focus on our own sin, we focus on the hardship that sin brings. We fail to take personal responsibility for that sin and get mad at God because he won’t bless that sin”. -Woodrow Krowl, Back to the Bible.