What's Next?

What's Next?

Is God silent?

I have often heard people counsel others that when God is silent, for whatever reason, to just go back and do the last thing they heard from Him. But, this may not, and probably is not, the best advice.

Think of road detours. Detours never take you back to where you began. Detours take you around something and then you re-enter the road at another point further up the road.

Numbers 13 and 14 is the account of the 12 Israelites spies going in to spy out the Land of Canaan. There are many angles of discussion that apply to these two chapters. The angle from which I will draw upon has to do with the Israelites’ response after they realize they have sinned against God. Instead of doing what God was currently saying, they went back to do what God had initially told them to do. The time, however, for that word had passed. It was no longer what God was saying.

Though this is a very sad part of Jewish history, it was still written so that “we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” God says through Paul in Romans 15:4, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” They were written to lead us into HOPE.

Another example from scriptures is in 1 Kings 17. Elijah had been told by God to go to the Brook Cherith; there ravens brought him food. After some time the brook dried up.

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Then the Lord again speaks to Elijah giving him direction. This time to go to a widow in Zarephath. There was a widow there who was to take care of Elijah.

What if Elijah had not gone to the brook when the Lord told him to? But then later, after the brook dried up, he went instead? Elijah would have ended up at a dried up brook. He would also have missed the timing of the widow; she would have been dead, actually. See, the widow was to provide for Elijah, but first a miracle through Elijah was to come to the widow. Had Elijah missed the timing with the brook, then acted upon it after the time had passed, he would also have missed the widow. But, let’s say he missed the brook, but obeyed what the Lord said about the widow from Zarephath—he would be right on track. I think it’s pretty much like that for us.

God wants relationship with us. He is not a formula or an algorithm where input = output. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word (rhema) that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” The Greek bears out “but by every currently proceeding word…” 

So, if God is being silent, either because you have been away from Him for awhile or for some unknown reason, take some time to just pray. Re-establish your relationship with Him. I don’t mean calluses on your knees type prayer. I mean get back into relationship with Him. Whatever that relationship means between you and God. Ask Him where His wind is blowing in your life. Ask Him for fresh direction. Then do the best you can to obey His leading.

Today my personal studying took me into Psalm 23. Verse 3 “He restores my soul,” melted me pretty thoroughly as I read it. I encountered God in those four little words. I looked up the Hebrew on “restores.” “Restores” means to turn back (hence, away) transitively or intransitively, literally or figuratively (not necessarily with the idea of return to the starting point). Barnes commentary says this phrase literally means, “He causes my life to return.”

So, God causes our life to return, but not necessarily to the starting point or the point of detour. It is comforting to know that God can get us back on His road to a place—as if we had never left to begin with. Yep, He is that Awesome.