FEELING LIKE YOU CAN’T FIND GOD?
I stood there looking at the night sky, searching for the moon and the stars, but they were covered by clouds.
I knew they were there. I just couldn’t see them.
Like the moon and the stars covered by clouds. You know God is there…even when you can’t see Him.
Have you ever felt far from God? Like you just couldn’t seem to find Him? Like you couldn’t hear His voice or see Him working in your life like perhaps He once did?
God’s silence can be deafening.
We wonder where He is and if He is there, does He care. We ache to hear His voice, see His hand, feel His touch.
But when it seems like He’s silent, we feel afraid, alone, and sometimes even abandoned.
Have you ever been there? Perhaps you’re there now.
HERE’S SOME PRACTICAL HELP FOR YOU DURING THIS DIFFICULT TIME…
There are a multitude of reasons why you feel like you can’t find God but we need to know what our specific reason is. That means, you have the responsibility of discovering why the Lord may seem silent in your life.
The only way you can begin to find out why is to intentionally quiet the world around you first.
Let’s face it…sometimes our lives are so loud that we drown out the still small voice of God and then wonder where He is.
Take some time to get away with God and just simply be still before Him. Spend time in His Word and in prayer. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and to show you anything you may be doing or not doing that would cause Him to seem far away.
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10
Then filter your life through Scripture to find out why…
FIRST – Is your faith being tested?
2 Chronicles 32:31 ~ “However, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, whom they sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.”
Hezekiah had a propensity for pride. The test wasn’t so that God could see what was in Hezekiah’s heart. The test was so that Hezekiah could get a good look at his own heart.
Perhaps the silence you are experiencing is because you are being tested.
Remember, faith by its very nature, must be tested. I pray that you will know, as 1 Peter 1:7 says,
“These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”
SECOND – Is God Getting Ready to Reveal Himself to You in a Profound Way
In John 11, we get a glimpse of how God is sometimes silent before He is getting ready to reveal Himself.
You see, in the town of Bethany, a man named Lazarus was dying. He as a friend of Jesus’. Lazurus had 2 sisters. Mary and Martha…and they sent messengers to Jesus and said, “Master, the one you love so much is sick.” (Jn 11:2)
No I’m sure they were expecting Jesus to hurry to heal Lazurus…after all they knew He LOVED Lazurus. But the Bible goes on to say, So, when He heart that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” (Jn 11:6)
Jesus didn’t start heading for Bethany for 2 days and by the time He arrived on the scenes, 4 days had passed. They were looking for Jesus to show up and heal their brother.
Now you can imagine how they must have felt. Jesus had healed others. They were well aware of what Jesus could do. But why wouldn’t He heal their brother? Didn’t Jesus care? Why didn’t He do something? Didn’t He LOVE Lazarus?
OSWALD CHAMBERS once said that many times, “His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvelous understanding of Himself.”
Had they not experienced the Lord’s silence for 4 days, they would have never experienced the miraculous hand of God.
Sometimes, God is silent right before He reveals Himself in ways that would not be possible if He had shown up earlier.
They wanted Jesus to show up and be the Great Physician…but Jesus wanted to reveal Himself to them as the Resurrection and the Life.
Sometimes God is silent right before He reveals Himself in ways we would have never been able to see before.
RECAP:
REMEMBER – YOU MAY NEED TO QUIET YOUR LIFE
If you feel like you can’t seem to find God, it may be because you need to push pause on your life long enough to listen to His still small voice say, “This is the way, walk in it.”
OR… YOU MAY BE GOING THROUGH A TIME OF TESTING
If you feel like you can’t seem to find God, be still long enough to hear from Him and ask God if He is allowing you to go through a test. If He shows you that you are or if He makes you aware of circumstances that indicate that you are, then ask Him what it is you can learn from the test and how you can know Him more through the test.
OR… PERHAPS GOD MAY BE GETTING READY TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO YOU IN A PROFOUND NEW WAY –
God may be preparing you for something big. He may want to reveal Himself to you in a brand new way. Hang on, keep pressing in, cling to His Word, and continue to align your life with His will. Your breakthrough, your miracle, your open door, your whatever it is you need, may be just around the corner.
When you can’t seem to find God, never forget, He knows exactly where you are. We may not understand what He is doing or why He isn’t revealing Himself to us like we think He should.
But His character assures us that His silence does not equal His absence. And His silence certainly does not equal His inactivity.
He is constantly working behind the scenes of our lives even when we don’t know it.