4-27-2018

Good Morning All,

    Job 30:20: “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me”.

    In the mid 1960’s, Simon and Garfunkel released a song entitled “Sounds of Silence”.  It is a haunting, plaintive song.  The singer is trapped in silence as those he wants to talk to can’t or won’t hear him.  So he is left with only the cries and the nightmares in his head.

                                                   People talking without speaking
                                                   People hearing without listening
                                                   People writing songs that voices never shared  

    Have you ever felt like this?  Have you ever felt like you were talking and no one was listening?  If you have ever dealt with teenagers you sort of have an understanding.  There are lots of times when we talk to people and they don’t listen or don’t hear us.  In the end, we usually get to think with a smirk “I told you but you wouldn’t listen”.  But what happens when we end up feeling like Job.  We look at our world all around us crumbling and we pray to God and we don’t get a response.

    Have you ever prayed for a child to survive, only to plan the funeral in a couple days?  Have you ever asked God, “Why doesn’t my spouse love me anymore?”  Or “Why does my daughter-in-law hate me?”  Or have you ever prayed, “If you won’t heal her, then let her die.”  Or “Why doesn’t anybody like me?”  We cry to God and hear nothing.  Sometimes, we even feel a loss of faith.  C. S. Lewis, in his book “A Grief Observed” wrote “Where is God? …Go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face.”

    Most of us have felt that way once or twice and that is ok.  At the end of the day, you are still a redeemed child of God.  We come to God and we fail to receive an answer.  Usually, we don’t receive the answer that we want. We pray “Thy will be done” as long as “THY” will is “MY” will.  One of the most difficult thing to remember is that God gives us what we need but not always what we want.  But God always hears us when we pray and he sorrows with us and he knows our pain.  He seeks to comfort us and to give us hope.  When we cry to God, he hears and he has big shoulders to take our anger which comes from our sorrow.  Eventually, that comfort will overtake the excruciating pain and it will take time but God is a God that loves you and seeks to give you this love.  These times of pain often show us that there really is no other source of hope or comfort; it resides only in God and in the hope he gives us.

   Dear Father, at those times when I feel no answer, send your Spirit of comfort to me.  Use those around me to be the arms and hands to show your love and compassion.  Remind me that your grace is sufficient for me.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret