A Pepper Grinder Post

What To Do When God Isn’t Answering

If any of you reading this have never experienced a time when God did not seem to be speaking or answering your prayers, I would like to know your secret. In all seriousness, please email me and tell me about it!

The truth is that while there have been many times in my life when I could see God acting or felt a clear sense what he wanted me to do, there were also other times when I desperately wanted him to intervene, when he seemed to be doing nothing and when the response to my prayers seemed to be silence.

It would be easy to think, as I often do, that this is because of a flaw in me. If I were better, God would answer my prayers and speak to me. Perhaps there is an element of truth to this. There is no record of God not answering Jesus’s prayers or not speaking to him, except at the end of his life when he was bowed under the guilt of all mankind.

On the other hand, the Bible gives evidence that I am not alone at the times I don’t hear God speak or see him act. I want to look today at a psalm that wrestles with this problem. I’m going to start by quoting from the first 9 verses of Psalm 77 from the NIV.

I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands
and my soul refused to be comforted.

I remembered you, O God, and I groaned;
I mused, and my spirit grew faint. Selah

You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.

I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;

I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart mused and my spirit inquired:

"Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?

Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?" Selah

We aren’t told what is upsetting the writer, but there is no doubt that he is very unhappy. He is staying up late at night. He is praying and there is no hint that he is allowing himself the pleasant distractions that so many of us use to ignore our unhappiness. He isn’t turning away from God in anger, but instead reaches out to him over and over. He sounds like the perfect model of someone who is earnestly seeking God.

And yet, God does not seem to be answering. When he remembers what God has done in the past, it hurts because it is so clear that he is acting differently now. The haunting question is whether those times when God responded are gone forever. Have I finally made God so angry that he has turned away from me for good?

It’s easy to feel this way. If you’re like me, the discouragement of the moment tends to feel so much stronger than the memories of good things in the past. But the psalmist doesn’t curl up into a ball of misery, or jump off a building, or hit the bottle.

Here is where he goes in the verses immediately following the quote above (Psalm 77:10-15, my translation):

Then I said, “I will wear myself down by thinking of the right hand of the Most High.

I will make myself remember the things Yahweh has done;
I will remember the wonders he has worked in the past.

I will meditate on all your deeds and muse about your actions.
God, your ways are holy.

What god is as great as our God?
You are the God who does extraordinary things.

You display your strength to the nations;
You saved your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph, with your strong arm.”

Up until now, we could imagine that the psalmist was just having a pity party, moaning about God not doing what he did in the past. In these verses, however, we see a distinct shift. The psalmist starts by saying what he is going to do. He is going to do battle with the feelings of discouragement. If he can’t vanquish these feelings outright, he will lay siege to them and grind them down. And what’s his weapon in this fight? Reminding himself of the things that God has done in the past. Then he shifts from saying what he will do, to actually doing it.

Maybe you’re saying, “Ah, I get it! He’s doing positive thinking, like Norman Vincent What’s-his-name.” I don’t think so. As I understand it, the idea behind positive thinking is to change your attitudes and feelings by changing the way you think. That’s not a bad thing. I know that for me, there are plenty of times I get gloomy because I’m thinking of things in a way that is skewed to the negative. But what we see in this psalm is much more powerful. In positive thinking, the focus is on you and your feelings and thoughts. In this psalm, the focus is on God and his character.

The point is this: just because God’s actions seem different does not mean that his character is different. He is still totally just, totally loving, and totally powerful. His change in action does not mean that he has changed or even that his attitude toward us has changed. He promises never to leave or forsake us (he says this several times in the Old Testament and then it is quoted in Hebrews 13:5).

Taking this psalm as an example, here is what I think we need to do at times when we feel discouraged or God does not seem to be taking action.

1. Ask God to show you if you’re doing something wrong. One possibility when God seems distant is that you have moved away from him. Deal with this possibility first. Remember that when the Holy Spirit convicts someone of sin, it feels clear and often refreshing. If you’re experiencing feelings of hopelessness or vague guilt and fear, that is not God working—that is either your brain or that other guy. If he clearly shows you that something you’re doing is wrong, apologize and tell him that, with his help, you won’t do it again. Move on.
   
2. Remind yourself that God is holy. That means that he is different from us. His thoughts and understandings and intentions are WAY above our pay grade. We shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t always understand what God is doing or why he is doing it.
   
3. Remind yourself that God is powerful. He created everything that exists. There is nothing he cannot do. That means that if he appears to be doing nothing to help you, it is not because he cannot. He has some purpose, even if we have no clue what it is.
   
4. Remind yourself that God is loving. Not only does he have a purpose, it is something that is good for us. I have gone through experiences that seemed just plain miserable at the time. Thinking back to many of these, however, I can see that I have a depth and understanding that I would not have without those unhappy times.
   
5. Think about things that God has done. Remember times in your life when God stepped in and helped you. Think about times in the Bible that God brought amazing good out of what seemed like total misery and defeat. He is still the same God. This doesn’t mean that he will always act the same way, but it does mean that his power and love are unchanged.
   
6. Lather, rinse, repeat. One of the most striking things to me about this psalm was the way the writer talked about wearing himself down by thinking about God. Just injecting one quick thought about God’s power and love into a brain that is saturated with discouragement may not be enough. We may need to do it again and again. This is the point of the meditation spoken of in verse 12. Meditation in the Bible is not like the meditation taught in some eastern religions where you are trying to empty your mind. On the contrary, the meditation spoken of here is trying to fill your mind with something by repeating it over and over. In fact, the Hebrew verb would literally be translated as “mutter.” The psalmist is drilling thoughts of God’s goodness and power into his brain by muttering them to himself over and over.

Does God seem silent? Do you feel as though your desperate prayers are just going to voice mail? Remember his character, and remember what he has done; over and over.

- Pepper
Posted 2020-07-06

*Image Credits: Cloudy sky by Luis Miguel Carretero Alcala, tree in fog by Patrizio Martorana.