8-19-2023

Good Morning All,

          Psalm 35:22; “You have seen, O Lord; be not silent!  O Lord, be not far from me!”

    For as much as we claim to crave silence, it is difficult to experience.  Silence can make us very uncomfortable.  If you have ever heard a sermon where the preacher just stops and says nothing for a minute, it can seem like an eternity.  I took some classes with a guy who could not tolerate silence. After the instructor would ask a question and there was more than 20 seconds of silence, he jumped in with something, anything to break the silence. He always had a comment, relevant or valid or completely off the wall, he said something. Everyone else just waited him out.

    Silence can be a very painful thing to experience.  If you have ever had a medical test and waited for the results, you know what that is.  If you have ever been in a hospital bed waiting for the doctor to come and speak to you, you know the excruciating silence of the wait.  If you have ever gone to the emergency room, you know what that is like.  You can sit there and watch the clock as it slowly ticks, and nothing happens.  We know that time isn’t standing still, and we know that everyone is doing the best that they can do but the silence seems to destroy us.  Where is the answer?  What is going on?

    For some of us, we have sat and poured out our heart, relayed all of our fears to God and then listened and heard nothing.  We cry to God and then listen, and it is silent.  Why do I have cancer?  Why did I lose my job?  Why did my partner have to leave me?  Why did my child die?  Those are some painful questions and often, as we ask them, there is only silence.  We call to God and experience only deafening silence and our pain continues to grow.

    Yet God is never far from us and even though we don’t hear; he continues to speak to us.  Often times it is because we are too busy speaking that we do not really listen.  We do not hear his words of comfort.  We do not hear his words of hope.  Yet he speaks them.

     Sometimes we don’t hear God because we don’t want to hear what he is saying.  We pray to God; we cry out to God, but it is not a prayer to him it is a list of demands for him.  We want these things to happen; we will not be happy unless these occur, so we don’t hear.  We experience self-imposed silence.  God speaks to us, but we don’t hear his words of comfort because we don’t want them.  We have our desires and God had better provide for them. 

     Yet through all of this God is always near us.  He never leaves us and always speaks to us with his voice of hope, his voice of comfort, his voice of consolation.  He is our only shelter in this broken world.  He gives us that hope that no one else can.  He is our salvation.

Father of all mercies, we cry, and cry and we find only silence.  Give us the understanding and the wisdom to see that we are only not listening.  Give us the faith that we may trust to hear you in all of the grace that pours out from you.  Guide us as we live the life that you give us by your mercy.  Be with those who have sat in silence for too long.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret