When There is no Miracle

In life, there are simply times when no matter how hard we pray, how long we choose to fast, or even how many other faithful friends steadfastly intercede on our behalf, life's circumstances may not change or even get better. In fact, to our dismay, they might even get worse. 

Miracles do not always happen that change our circumstances, no matter how much faith we may have. In fact, the Scriptures teach us that when there is no miracle, that does not mean that God does not have a plan. The Bible also teaches us that having our own way, may not always be a good thing, in fact, it can even lead to disaster and heartache (See Numbers 11; Psalm 106:15).

Our request for a miraculous change in our circumstances may sometimes not be granted. Some stubbornly refuse to let go of a request for God to intervene and heal or deliver a loved one from a tragic set of circumstances. Over time, when there is no miracle one can become disillusioned regarding God's faithfulness and mercy.  The real miracle that God desires is a completely yielded heart, trusting Him regardless, that He might be glorified however the situation turns out. 

The Prayer life of Jesus

Jesus spent much time alone so that He could pray to His Father and commune with Him in The Quiet Place.  His prayer life provides us with a model for our own personal worship time with God. It also provides insight into how He lived His earthly ministry under God the Father's Sovereignty.

He made Time for The Quiet Place

“After He had dismissed them, He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. Later that night, He was there alone.”   Matthew 14:23

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.”  Mark 1:35

“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”  Luke 6:12

“Yet the news about Him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses, but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”  Luke 5:15-16

His Priority for The Quiet Place

It is insightful that no matter how busy and exhausted Jesus became, He always found time to go to The Quiet Place to meet with His Father.

The time or place was not significant. He found the time and He made a place. What an encouraging example this is for each of us to make time for The Quiet Place no matter what is happening in our lives. We can sometimes be tempted to say, "I just haven't had time to pray about it." Really....or is it rather that we have just not made it a priority to pray about it.

Surrendering our Will to God

The Lord wanted his disciples to really grasp the reality that life for them as His followers was not about maneuvering God’s will to fit their plans, but rather submitting to God’s Sovereign authority to discover how to live under His plan. 

He taught them what to center their prayers upon, so as to prepare them for serving God in the troublesome days that were soon to come.

 “This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”  Matthew 6:9-13

They would later become Apostles who would wield miraculous power and authority, as the New Testament Church was established. They all would suffer extreme hardship and persecution, and most would be tortured, and die as martyr's, refusing to deny Him. Their present plan had to give way to His perfect plan.

"Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”Matt. 6:9b -10

There is a critical step in this model prayer that directs us to humble ourselves and bow the knee in reverential submission to the Sovereign will of our Heavenly Father. The will of the King is to reign in His Kingdom.

God's Will must Reign over Our Will

We all have a tendency in life to want everything to go our way. In The Quiet Place God wants each of us to learn that our way may sometimes be in direct conflict with His will. Our life will sometimes have seasons of difficult trials, discouraging disappointment, and painful devastating suffering. Regardless of our feelings, our circumstances or our dreams, His will must reign over our will. 

"This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:  “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."  Isaiah 30:15

Christ Submitted His Will to God's Sovereignty

Jesus later modeled this truth at a time when He was soon to face the greatest test of His earthly ministry. As He prayed to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed knowing the horrific circumstances that were to come. He sought to prepare His heart for the coming agonies of the Cross.

We will never know the sweetness of precious worship and intercession with God, until we are brought to a place where we kneel alone before His Glory and Majesty as our Sovereign Father.  This is especially true when there is no evidence of a miracle we so desperately had hoped that He would grant. It is often in the darkest hour of sorrow and suffering, that the Holy Spirit makes His presence intimately known, as we fall prostrate before His Throne in absolute surrender.

In The Quiet Place Christ Communed with His Father

 

Christ had but one place to be on that terrible night in Gethsemane, and that was to seek out His Father, and shut out the world around Him. The only way, in the midst of suffering that we can rise above the pain, and despair, is to draw near to God, and share our heart with Him alone. 

Try to picture that night in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew He was about to be thrust into unspeakable horror and the unimaginable anguish of the crucible of the Cross.  

Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, would now actually humble Himself, and die as the sacrificial atonement for our sins, as The Lamb of God (See Phil.2:6-8). The King of Kings would become the Lamb of God... because He loved us, and He knew that there was no other way for mankind to be cleansed from our sins and have access to His Father's heart.

He was about to give His life, and take upon Him the sin of the world, as mankind’s only atonement for sin. He was about to die for all of us. You and I were in His mind, and on His heart at that very moment in time (Luke 22:41-43). 

He sought first of all a private place apart from others where He could lay down His heart and will before His Father in Heaven.

“He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them,” Luke 22: 41a

He bowed His knee to His father in Heaven as an act of complete submission to His Father’s Sovereign will and purpose.

 “He knelt down…” Luke 22:41b

He brought His desire and request before His Father as a separate singular issue.

  “He …prayed…” Luke 22:41c

He acknowledged that His Father alone had the authority, and therefore the power to grant His request, or to choose not to grant it.

"Father, if you are willing…” Luke 22:42a

He specifically requested for a deliverance from the tragic and horrific circumstances that were about to come to pass.

 “… take this cup from me…” Luke 22:42b

He submitted to His Father’s will with reverence and obedience.

“…yet, not My will, but Yours be done.” Luke 22:42c 

It comes down to this issue for each and every one of us: God has the right, and does not need our permission, to rearrange our life to achieve His purposes. In the blink of an eye, anyone's whole life can get turned upside down and, and like the Old Testament example of Job, you may not be able to make sense of it, others may judge you because of it, and it even may get worse before it gets any better. 

Yielding our Hopes and our Dreams

Our dreams for our lives will only truly satisfy our hearts, when He is able to weave them into the tapestry of His Sovereign plan.  For that to be so, we must come to trust Him as Lord above all things. He must have uncontested authority over our hopes, dreams and our plans. This is so easy to say and so difficult to put into practice. This issue will be tested every single day of our lives. His Sovereignty alone must dictate how we respond to suffering, and hardship, and everything else in our lives.

Joni Erikson wrote the following insight, reflective of her life and the hardships that she experienced,

“The best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. It's enough to convince our hearts that whatever sufferings and sorrows currently assail us aren't worthy of comparison to that which waits over the horizon.” Joni Erickson Tada 

Hope is Rooted in God’s Sovereign Will

His Father did not grant His request. Let’s pause for a moment and reflect upon this staggering truth: His Father did not grant His request. It is without question that His Father's heart would be torn, and broken by the events that were soon to come upon His beloved Son, yet He did not grant His Son's request. 

Even at the expense of His Son’s suffering, knowing that Jesus would have to experience humiliation, torture and mutilation before a godless sinful angry crowd of people...God The Father did not grant His request. 

His Father would seemingly step back and witness such horrific and tortuous acts that were to be inflicted upon His Son. His Father also knew that amidst the obsidian cloaking darkness that would shadow those moments upon Calvary, unimaginable wickedness and unholy sinfulness would also be was placed upon His Son. He also knew that His Son would cry out from the cross in anguish and confusion that His Father would not come to His aid and rescue Him.

“About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  Matthew 27:46

Sometimes the silence of God can be misunderstood as the uncaring negligence of God to help us with whatever it is that we are in anguish about. However, the apparent silence of God may be because He alone knows that deliverance from a difficult circumstance is exactly what we do not need.

“God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” Augustine

Some have reflected that God is not interested in our happiness but in our holiness. That is true. However, let’s take this truth to a deeper core truth: God is not interested in our happiness…He is wanting us to be His.

“I'm not sure God wants us to be happy. I think he wants us to love, and be loved. But we are like children, thinking our toys will make us happy and the whole world is our nursery. Something must drive us out of that nursery and into the lives of others, and that something is suffering.” C. S. Lewis  

"You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever." Psalm 16:11

Does God want to bless us, provide for us, and prosper us? Of course He does, and the Scriptures are full of His promises to substantiate just that. He also has a Sovereign plan for each of us, and sometimes that plan will lead us to unhappy times where it is His Joy alone that must flow through us, and not mere transient happy feelings that come from only happy temporary circumstances. If our happenings don't happen to happen like we hope they happen, how can we be happy anyway?

When There is no Miracle there can be Peace

We need strength during tough times. Weariness breaks us down. It is God’s deepest desire that we experience His strength as we yield in The Quiet Place to His Sovereignty and trust Him. It is only then, that His peace will flow to our  troubled heart, and His it is only then that His joy will give us strength to endure.

"Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

Perhaps you are facing your own Gethsemane in your life right now. You know that to obey and trust God on a matter, will bring about consequences and perhaps suffering that is unavoidable. In that hushed moment when you are transparent and open before God, His love and His glory will flow through you, and His peace will sustain you under severe trial, for the pathway to the Throne of Grace is found in the hushed sanctum of The Quiet Place. 

^“Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the Throne of Grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  Hebrews 4:16

It is beside the still waters, in The Quiet Place, where The Good Shepherd waits to meet with you and restore the weariness of your soul.

"The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside Quiet waters. He restores my soul..." Psalm 23:1-3

When God is Silent in The Quiet Place

The Silence of God has always been perplexing, and very difficult for any of us to understand. We long for a whisper of God's wisdom, to gain some insight into His purpose in allowing pain and suffering to cast a gray shadow upon our daily lives. There is no sound that burdens the sufferer more than the Silence of God.

The psalmist found himself near complete collapse as he faced a series of setbacks, enemies that sought to harm him and the cruel ridicule of others. Nothing seemed to help and God seemed to be absent and silent. Feel the painful desperation in his voice as he writes...

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold; I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched…My eyes fail, looking for my God.” Psalm 69:1-3

The Silence of God Tests our Faith

There is a time in the midst of severe testing, when human endurance, one's ability to cope, unending physical pain, the weariness of depression, and the overwhelming fatigue that goes along with suffering, take a dreadful toll upon one's life.

While suffering is an inevitable dimension of life, it seems foreign and unnatural....out of place when linked to a loving God, full of mercy and compassion. In reality, it is not possible to develop Christ like character and spiritual depth apart from experiencing seasons of personal suffering.

God Works throughout our Lives Silently

Each stage of our lives is woven as an intricate  personal tapestry, interlaced with a myriad of threads reflecting our own individual pilgrimage upon the pathways that we have taken. One cannot truly see or understand the true story behind the tapestry until it is turned over, and then the kaleidoscope of threads reveals a progressive work of infinite beauty.

Over our lifetime, God's skilled hands weave the tapestry, knowing what it will one day become. Others, even ourselves, cannot  make any real sense of the myriad of threads, especially when suffering and heartache, edge the rough borders of the pattern.

Only God is able to select each thread that is needed at a specific time in our pilgrimage here, and weave it into our lives, be it the first experience of feeling loved, difficult challenges in high school, depression, sorrow, the birth of a child, loss, success, failure, anxiety, illness and ultimately death.

“Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.” C.S.Lewis 

God's Silence does not mean He is not Present

All along the pathway, an infinite, all knowing, all powerful and ever present God, has been at work in our circumstances with the primary purpose to lead us to His heart. He purpose is to radiate His Spirit through our lives, so that we can become a display of His Glory and Majesty to a fallen world. 

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power  may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair." II Corinthians 4:6-8

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Ephesians 2:10a

When God is Silent in The Quiet Place

There are numerous examples in Scripture where God made His will specifically known during difficult times of testing. His purpose was often made known whereby He could reveal His will to each servant individually. We are eager for quick answers, while He is desirous that we trust His Word, and learn to walk by faith and not by sight. Some of God's answers can only be heard in our own personal Gethsemane.

On some of those occasions, the individual being tested, expected God to disclose His purpose to them in a different way than He did. Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, Jeremiah, and many other Bible characters, struggled with this very issue. There is a principle that is universal to life: 

The natural man must see in order to believe, but the spiritual man must believe in order to see. 

During a time of great struggle, the psalmist was able to reach through his anguish, cling to God in faith, and eventually trust in the reliability of God's faithfulness, and the complete reliability of His Word.

“My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 42:10-11

God Speaks to us in the Midst of Suffering

God may seem to be silent, but He is speaking through His Word. The experience of suffering does not produce spiritual depth in our lives in and of itself. It is how we react to suffering that determines one’s spiritual growth through sorrow and pain. 

The discipline of suffering has a primary purpose to accomplish within each of us: God wants above all else for us to be His.

We discover that when we are thrust into trials that are filled with sorrow and laced with hopelessness, that it is He alone that understands. He draws near to nurture and comfort us, and He is desirous to heal our broken heart more than our physical pain.

“This is the purpose of pain for the redeemed: it is one of your Father's ways of speaking to you; it is the evidence of His limitless love, by which He would draw you farther from evil and closer to Him, the divine remedy which can cure you of pride and help you lean more trustingly on the Lord.”  Walter A. Maier

 

When God is Silent - Listen with your Heart 

In the midst of suffering, we discover a rare and blessed intimacy with God that is comforting, as slowly the emotional or physical pain gives way to a sweet song of worship and praise. God’s grace is most present in the lives of the weak, the humble, the downtrodden, the weary and the those who are broken. God may seem to be silent, but He speaks through His promises that are scattered like diamonds throughout the Scriptures.

“Come near to God and he will come near to you…” James 4:8

When we reflect upon the past, we remember the many times where God provided grace and strength, and we are reminded that He has always been faithful. He is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in the midst of sorrow with a nurturance and care that only He can provide (See II Cor. 1:2-4).

We remember that He came near to hear our cry, and He reached forth and healed our wounds, but He did not remove the scars. Our scars have the capacity to remind us that the past was real, and rather than represent mere reminders of our suffering, they become memorials to the grace and glory of God.

Ideally, when a child is hurting and afraid, he runs to his father, and the immediate response of the father is to open his arms and embrace him. So it is with our Heavenly Father. His desire is to bring comfort to us and sooth our tears with His love. In His arms, the silence gives way to the sound of His heart beating against ours, and we become one with Him in the fellowship of His sufferings (See Phil. 3:10).

“The suffering of sickness and the suffering of persecution have this in common: they are both intended by Satan for the destruction of our faith, and governed by God for the purifying of our faith... Christ sovereignly accomplishes His loving, purifying purpose, by overruling Satan's destructive attempts. Satan is always aiming to destroy our faith; but Christ magnifies His power in weakness.” John Piper

God Allows Suffering to call us to Stillness

The Quiet Place is often bathed in the tears of God's people, for it is the very dew that covers the pathway to the heart of God, and it is precious to Him. God sometimes silently and purposefully shuts the door to a relief from our sorrow and suffering. We hear the click of the door to our freedom from pain, as he closes us in where only He is present. He may seem far away, but He is always there beside you, just as He has promised in His Word that He would be.

(See Deuteronomy 4:31; 31:6, 8; Psalm 27:10; 37:28; 94:14; John 14:18; Matthew 28:20)

He does this so that He may speak in the midst of our grief and pain, and softly whisper precious promises to us of His abiding presence.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

That is His most cherished gift to us in the midst of the storm. He commands the storm to be still not to prevent our boat from sinking, but to enlighten us who need to see in order to believe, that He has been there with us in the midst of the storm as we huddled fearfully in the bottom of the boat.

God's Silence and Unanswered Prayer

One of the realities of unanswered prayer, in the midst of difficult trials and suffering, is to learn to be obedient, regardless of any change in our circumstances. The book of Hebrews reveals to us that Christ Himself learned obedience to His Father as He passed through the crucible of suffering.

“During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.”  Hebrews 5:7-9

God is not Silent - He is Speaking in the Quiet Place

It is very tempting for a Christian to become bitter in the midst of suffering by hardening his heart toward God for allowing the suffering, and for not delivering him from it. Disappointment with God can create a seed of resentment toward Him, and unless it is laid before the Throne of Grace, it turns into a root of bitterness. We are urged to cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us (I Peter 5:7), and to kneel before the Throne of Grace in the hour of our greatest need. 

God is not Silent - He is Listening to your Heart

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  Hebrews 4:15-16

When Christ Himself suffered the indignities and shame of the cross, while enduring unimaginable torture and pain, He remained obedient to the will and purpose of His Father. He knows what it is like to experience physical, emotional and mental pain and sorrow. Drawing near to Him in the midst of suffering helps us to bear up during our hardship and remain free from bitterness.

God is not Silent - He Understands what it is like to be Tested

“Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.”  Hebrews 2:18 

What are we most tempted to do when we are experiencing insufferable pain and unrelenting disappointment? Our greatest temptation is to blame God, and become bitter toward Him as we wonder, “Where is God when it hurts?” We can struggle with His seeming absence, and conclude that He just doesn’t really care.

“I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain.” John Henry Newman

God is not Silent - He is wants us to give Him the Unbearable Burden 

The only shoulders strong enough to carry our burdensome suffering, once carried an old rugged cross to become our substitute for sin...He suffered and died for every one of us. He alone can bear the Unbearable Burden for He already has.

^"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”  I Peter 1:18-20

God is never Silent… He speaks through the darkness of your lonely night. God is never Silent...He speaks to you though His Word. God is never Silent… He whispers your name to call you to Himself. God is never Silent...He is there beside you as you read these words…ready to comfort you. God is never Silent…He is waiting for each of us in The Quiet Place where comfort and trust in Him, will become more meaningful than understanding the reason why.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassion never fails. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him…” Lamentations 3:22-23

Take a moment to listen to this song by Andrew Peterson entitled The Silence of God