Embracing the Silence: Navigating the Spiritual Challenge of Waiting on God

Our faith implies waiting. But waiting for certain outcomes and through certain seasons of our life can be hard.

We live in a culture and a society that wants everything on demand. We want what we want and we want it now. However, the world’s propensity for wanting hard and fast answers for everything that happens in life tends to work in conflict with a life of faith. Faith, by its very essence, is a hope in things we are confident will happen in the future. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that our "faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen."

Our faith implies waiting. But waiting for certain outcomes and through certain seasons of our life can be hard. There are times in our lives when we live with complete certainty and clarity and we feel we know exactly what God is doing in us and around us. There are other periods of our lives when we don’t know what God is doing or why. There are times when God just seems to be silent. Sometimes it feels like God has just forgotten us completely and no matter how loud or often we cry out, he just doesn’t seem to be hearing us. We find ourselves just waiting for God to move. We start asking ourselves, why is God making me wait? Why is he not answering my prayers or changing my situation? What is God doing in this situation?

The answer is pretty simple but it doesn’t make the waiting any easier. God is working in your waiting. You should never mistake God’s silence for God’s absence because God’s silence doesn’t indicate his absence. You may be asking yourself; how can I be so certain that God is working and that God hasn’t forgotten about me in my situation? Mostly, it's because we have thousands of years of biblical history recorded for us in the Bible. And all throughout that history we see God’s hand working to bring about his will. And because the Bible is God’s revealed word to us about himself, it also informs us of the character of God and we see time and time again through the Bible that God is not in the business of forgetting and forsaking his people. John chapter 11 is a good example. We find in this passage two reasons why God makes us wait in certain seasons.

Sometimes God makes us wait so he can bring greater glory to himself when he does answer.

In the Book of John, chapter 11. The sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was very sick. Jesus and Lazarus being great friends, the sisters thought Jesus would rush to Lazarus’ side, but he didn’t. We read this in John 11:3-5

3 So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.” 4 But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” 5 So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, 6 he stayed where he was for the next two days.

When Jesus arrives in Judea, a very distraught Mary approaches Jesus telling him that Lazarus would not have died if Jesus had been there to heal him. What Mary didn’t know was that he was going to heal Lazarus from something greater than sickness. He was fixing to bring him back from the dead. Overcoming this greater problem was going to bring greater glory to God. Jesus asks them to take him to the tomb where Lazarus was laid. He then says this to the crowd in John 11:40-44

40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” 41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” 43 Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”

The second reason God sometimes delays is…

Sometimes God is trying to do something in us before he does something for us.

In this same story of raising Lazarus from the dead, we see that sometimes God needs to do something in us during the waiting. He told the disciples in John 11:14-15

14 So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15 And for your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there, for now you will really believe.

Lazarus was not the first person Jesus raised from the dead. He was the third. Yet apparently, people were still struggling to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and carried within him all the power and attributes of God. Jesus knows his disciples are still doubting which is why he makes this comment. He says something similar when standing at the tomb of Lazarus in John 11:41-42

41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.”

God used a period of waiting to strengthen the faith of some of his dearest friends and in the process, it brought him tremendous glory. We don’t ever want to mistake God’s silence for God’s absence. Just because you are in a period of waiting doesn’t mean that God is not working. If you are waiting on God today, know that you are in great company with some of the heroes of the faith. Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for their son Isaac to be born. Joseph waited 13 years in prison before he became the ruler God had promised he would become. David was anointed to be king but it was almost 15 years before he would take the throne. We see many others waiting on God in the New Testament. There was a woman who had a bleeding issue for 12 years before she met Jesus and it was healed. Another man couldn’t walk for 38 years and Jesus healed him. God eventually works all things to his glory but it’s on His timetable. Our job is to trust him in the waiting.