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Episode 4 - When God is Silent
55 Plays5 months ago
Have you been praying and God seems silent? How do you handle this? This episode looks at Job, Elijah, and David who give us compelling examples of how to trust God in the midst of Him "being silent." God's silence does not mean His absence.
Reach out to share your thoughts, or how this podcast has helped you: pray@coyfc.org
Central Ohio Youth for Christ: www.coyfc.org
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Aim
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Brian Brooks from Central Ohio Youth for Christ. I love praying and seeing answers to prayer, but more importantly, and love seeing God at work. And this podcast is here to open our eyes to see God moving and who He is. I'm sharing stories every episode because they bring truths about God to life.
00:00:33
Speaker
They tell us that following God isn't a formula. Praying to him is not sending thoughts to an impersonal force or firing an airplane out into the universe.
00:00:45
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Stories show us that when God does something, it's personal. If you don't believe in God, I don't want you to miss out on the reality that believing in Jesus is real.
Understanding God's Personal Involvement
00:00:55
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God is personal.
00:00:57
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He wants to know you. He hears our prayers and he's active in changing people's lives. The Bible says that to as many as received him, Jesus, he gave the right to become children of God.
00:01:10
Speaker
God offers real forgiveness, peace, and relationship with him through Jesus Christ. I hope you can hear that and call out to him because God offers that, but just like offering a gift, you need to receive it in order for it to be given to you.
00:01:26
Speaker
I hope you'll pray more, pray with focus and pray with joy because you're learning who God is, what he cares about and how he fulfills his mission through prayer and his people. Because prayer is an inroad and after that there are many ways to get involved in what God is doing.
00:01:41
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I hope that you'll be motivated to the point where you actually try, like you do the challenges at the end of the episode. If you're like me, you hear a ton of content and ideas.
00:01:52
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eat this, do this workout, read this book, try this idea. Hearing them can be helpful, but testing them out and actually taking a simple action step makes all the difference.
00:02:05
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And these are simple ideas at the end of each episode that you can do to enhance and strengthen your prayer with God.
Engaging in Community Prayer
00:02:13
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If you want to go deeper and pray with followers of Jesus locally,
00:02:17
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at Central Ohio Youth for Christ, we want to facilitate a movement of groups praying together in person for young people in our communities. Shoot an email to pray C-O-Y-F-C dot org if you want to be a part of that.
00:02:35
Speaker
So let's pray and see what God does. Pray along with me.
Dealing with God's Silence
00:02:40
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God, sometimes I pray to you about things, I wait, and there doesn't seem to be an answer.
00:02:47
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What does that mean? Can you help me to trust you when that happens, to believe that you're good and that you're doing something, even if I don't see it? Amen.
00:03:00
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You know, there's a real danger in doing this podcast, that somehow what could get conveyed to you is a formula that, just like a math problem, if you crunch the same numbers every time, you get the same result.
00:03:15
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Or that there's a promise that if you pray in this way, your life's going to be great. Yeah, seeing God answer prayers, it is great. It's real. It's encouraging. It's the same with seeing God change people's lives.
00:03:29
Speaker
But God is not a genie who does everything we command or ask him to do. Instead, what happens if you feel like you're praying, but God's not talking back? If he's silent? What if when you pray, you don't see what God does?
00:03:44
Speaker
It seems like he doesn't he doesn't want to act. He doesn't want to answer your prayer. He seems silent, like you're talking to a wall. Recently, i attended a class at my church. I ran into a longtime friend who I used to read the Bible with every week.
00:04:00
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We caught up for a minute during class break. We started talking about prayer, actually. I recommended a book I was reading. While pulling up my phone to text him the book title and link, he said, you know,
00:04:12
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Maybe I should read that because God has never answered my prayer. Does God actually speak to people? I've never experienced that. It's like prayer doesn't work, or at least it doesn't work for me.
00:04:26
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Have you been in that spot before? Or do you know someone who is currently? What do you say to that? If someone genuinely believes in Jesus, they have accepted his offer of love and forgiveness,
00:04:39
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If they are praying, but they have no sense that God is hearing them, how do you come alongside them?
Biblical Examples of Faith Amid Silence
00:04:45
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What are the answers? I don't have the answer in every case, but here's the point for today.
00:04:52
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God's silence does not mean he is absent. His silence is an invitation to go deeper with him. We're going to look at a few characters in the Bible of how they interacted with this idea of relating to God.
00:05:08
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First one is Job. Job experienced a lot of suffering and hardship. There's a book written in the Old Testament called Job. At the time, Job had no idea what the reason was for the suffering, even though the Bible tells us the reason was God allowed the suffering to prove a point to Satan and to the angels.
00:05:31
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But Job didn't know that. He didn't know all that. He attributed his suffering to God to a certain extent, but he didn't lose hope. He concluded that God was still good. Listen to what Job says in Job 19.
00:05:45
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Before he gets the ultimate answer, before he talks to God, he says in Job 19.25, I know my Redeemer lives. At the last, he will stand upon the earth. After my skin has thus been destroyed in my flesh, I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself.
00:06:02
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My eyes shall behold and not another. My heart faints within me. Job knew, even though he didn't have the answer, even though it seemed like God is silent, there was going to be a time later in the future when he would see God and that would be good.
00:06:16
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God's silence does not mean that he is absent. His silence is an invitation to go deeper with him. Second person is Elijah. Elijah had ah run of several major victories spiritually being used by God as a prophet.
00:06:34
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And Elijah gets to a point where he's fleeing a bad situation. God takes care of him. And Elijah goes on a desert journey to Mount Horeb, where it says the mountain of God in 1 Kings 19.
00:06:49
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Picking up in verse 11, it says, God tells Elijah, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Behold, the Lord passed by. A great strong wind tore the mountains, broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord.
00:07:03
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But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire was the sound of a low whisper.
00:07:17
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When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak. He went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Behold, there came to a voice to him and said, what are you doing here, Elijah? God spoke, but it probably wasn't what Elijah expected.
00:07:31
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He would have expected the fire. He would have expected the wind and the earthquake. Instead, it was a low whisper. But I'm not saying that God will necessarily always speak to you in an audible voice that you can hear. it might be through your thoughts.
00:07:45
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It might be through someone else. God has creative ways to get your attention. It might be through something you read in the Bible that jumps out at you off the page. It's up to us whether or not we want to listen.
00:07:59
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God's silence does not mean that he is absent. His silence is an invitation to go deeper with him. Last person is David. In Psalm 28, he says,
00:08:10
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he says to you o lord i call my rock Don't be deaf to me, unless if you're silent to me, i will become like those who go down to the pit.
00:08:22
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Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cry to you for help. Verses later in 6, he says, Blessed be the Lord. He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
00:08:33
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The Lord is my strength and my shield, and him my heart trusts and I'm helped. My heart exalts, and with my song I give thanks to him. The Lord is the strength of his people. He is the saving refuge of his anointed.
00:08:47
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Oh, save your people and bless your heritage. Be their shepherd and carry them forever. David approached God and his initial point was, I'm calling to you, God, but don't be deaf to me.
00:08:58
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Don't be silent. Maybe that's what he felt like. Sometimes it's like that when we cry out to God. He's begging God to hear his pleas, but somehow he concludes that. Blessed be the Lord. He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
00:09:12
Speaker
He is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him. It's a reminder to himself. it's He's re-upping on his commitment to trust God. He's not giving up. David concluded God heard him.
Trusting God's Timing & Communication
00:09:26
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And we can conclude that too. If you've been forgiven by God, if you've received his forgiveness, the Bible says you have complete access to approach his throne to find grace and mercy in your time of need in Hebrews 4.
00:09:41
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The Bible says we have the Holy Spirit inside of us who prays with us, for us, and prays to God. His silence does not mean that he is absent.
00:09:52
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His silence is an invitation to pursue him, to go deeper with him. Do not give up on pursuing God. Sometimes his answer to our prayers might be no.
00:10:03
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It's still an answer. Or it might be not yet, which just means wait and keep asking. What do we do during this time, though? Well, we may need to wait and keep asking.
00:10:15
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We don't want to give up on pursuing God. Instead, you can tell God in faith, in trust, that you believe he is working, even if you don't sense it or can't see it.
00:10:26
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Ask him to show you. Maybe we can't see it because God has already shown us something and asked us to make a choice to go his way, to give a thought, give an attitude, give a lifestyle choice over to him, and we've said no.
00:10:44
Speaker
If you're in that place, it is hard to hear God's voice because we've already heard it and said, no, I'm not going to follow you. some of the time it could be we can't hear God because we're not willing to listen.
00:10:59
Speaker
If you're in that place and God is bringing something to your mind, like this is the issue, what are you going to do? Give it over to God. Tell him, God, I want to go your way. Can you help me do that?
00:11:09
Speaker
I want to be humble. I want to listen to you. I want to follow you. He could be bringing something up in your life and your refusal to follow him could be clouding your vision of who he is.
00:11:20
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And that's maybe be why you don't have a sense of him moving. I have been in that place. The good news is that if you know Jesus personally and have a relationship with him, that is not the end of your relationship with him.
00:11:36
Speaker
You can turn back and change your mind. Talk to God about that. But what about his silence? Well, the Bible says that God has spoken to us. In Hebrews 1, check this out, verse 1.
00:11:49
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Long ago, at many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he created the world.
00:12:06
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His Son, Jesus, is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. You want to know what God's like? Look at Jesus. Read about him. You want to know God's power, his love for people?
00:12:19
Speaker
Read about Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That is a thing. He has spoken to us through his word. So here's my challenge to you. God's silence does not mean that he is absent.
00:12:33
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His silence is an invitation to go deeper with him. If these points are speaking to you, talk to God about that longtime request of yours, a problem that's been unanswered.
00:12:44
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Tell God in faith, which means trust, that you believe he is doing something, even if you can't see it. Thank him for how he has spoken to you in his word in the Bible.
00:12:58
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And read the Bible. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to learn who Jesus is and ask God, what are you telling me about yourself? What do you want to speak to me?
00:13:10
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And God can and will speak to you in other ways. That's why we want to gather people into groups of believers so that God may get to speak to you through another believer.
00:13:24
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Well, over the next two episodes, we're going look at two simple tools that you can use to grow and focus your prayer time. If you want to connect and learn more about starting up a prayer group connected to one of our ministries, just shoot an email to pray at coyfc.org.
00:13:41
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dot org