When Heaven is Silent....

I'm lying in bed, staring at the ceiling wondering how to deal with life. So many things seem to be going wrong. Friends are moving on with their lives, living, loving, changing, even flourishing. The world itself moves at a blurred and frantic pace all around me. But my life seems to have come to a grinding halt. Work, friends, home....none of these feel satisfying, my dreams lie unfulfilled and my need to be loved is cast aside unattended like a hungry, wailing baby. The universe as I know it, is crashing around me and I can't think of a single person to turn to for comfort. Which of my best friends would understand how it feels to be in my shoes? Which buddy, pal or mate would know the right words to take my pain away? I'm feeling drained and.......something else......I think it's hopelessness. It's raining outside and a single tear rolls down my cheek.

I suddenly remember....what about God then? Talking to Him always helps doesn't it? I feel better just at the thought. So my head bows down, my soul looks up to heaven and I cry out to Him from the depths of my heart. My prayer is simple...I know I don't need to say anymore. "Lord, can you hear my heartcry from where you are? I'm at my lowest right now....please say something, I need you so much." This said, I eagerly await a reply. His still small voice, the usual calming effect, the peace that fills my heart in the aftermath....I await these. Realisation dawns soon and I understand no comfort is forthcoming. Heaven itself is strangely silent.

I am puzzled at first, bewildered at best. How can this be? Did He speak and did I miss it? Is He delaying a reply? Should I wait longer? But as the hours roll by, I realise that the usual comfort He has always afforded me is not coming my way this time. The single tear swells to a flood and I curl myself into my pillow shaking with my personal pain. This was most unfair. Didn't God know He's my only refuge, my only hiding place? How could He desert me when I need Him the most? How can heaven's doors remain closed when a needy heart is knocking? Does God care? Does He truly love me? If yes, then why is He silent? Is He as unreliable as humans too? Is He even there for real? A thousand questions arise in my heart simultaneously, a little like startled birds taking flight.

If you're nodding and saying to yourself, "Been there, done that", then it's you I'm talking to, reader. These are the times when our faith is shaken the most.....the times that challenge our belief that He exists and that He cares.....the times when we are ashamed to discuss or admit our unbelief and doubt in a living, caring God to even close friends. How many times we have all travelled there.

What is the truth then? Does God exist? Does He care? And why is He silent when you are hurting? I'm not even discussing the first question here actually. If we choose to measure God's existence by His responses every time, then understand that He feels no compulsion to prove His existence to us. About His care....well you can hardly accuse a God who gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our salvation, of not caring! So why then is He silent when you are teetering on the brink of the precipices of hopelessness and frustration?

I would like to draw the answer to this maddening question from a shadowed, moonlit olive garden, 2000 years ago. The Garden of Gethsemane....where Jesus prayed the night before He was crucified. Come with me reader, let us tiptoe in on the scene. The Lord Jesus is parting from His beloved disciples. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" He confides, "stay here, and keep watch" (Mark 14:34). They nod dutifully, but minutes after He leaves, their eyes droop and they nod off to sleep. Fine friends indeed! But let us not tarry here. Let us follow Jesus through the undergrowth, as He walks a stone's throw away from them, kneels in a shadowy recess praying His heart out. We can see His lips move, and if we move nearer, we can hear him say, "Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." (Mark 14:35)

It is obvious He is in great emotional and spiritual distress as He contemplates the terrible death that awaits Him the next day. He knows it is His destiny, the awful culmination of His Father's grand salvation plan. He struggles to accept so much pain, so much unfair punishment. His human self tries to reconcile why someone as sinless and pure as He, must be the sacrifice to redeem an ungrateful and undeserving world. Watch with me reader as the Lord of the Universe sweats blood in His anguish and grief. Perhaps His friends can comfort Him. He rises and goes to them, only to find that they sleep without a care in the world. Thrice He returns, hoping atleast one would be awake, praying with Him and for Him. Thrice, He is let down.

Deeply disappointed, He return to His alcove, knowing this time there is not one human He can rely on. Perhaps His Father would comfort Him. He prays again the same prayer while we watch with bated breath, hoping for an astonishing display of thunder and lightning and divine intervention in this drama that is fast escalating towards its horrifying end on Golgotha's hilltop. Minutes pass and we slowly realise it is not to be. The same Father who proudly and dramatically declared Jesus "His son whom He loved and with whom He was well pleased" (Matthew 3:13-17) before large crowds at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river, is now ominously quiet. The heavens themselves are deafening in their silence.

And yet, Jesus faltered not. The next day on the cross He was to cry out that heartbreaking cry of agony, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - Mark 15:33-34) . Hanging on the cross, his body rent in tremendous physical agony, Jesus watched in unparalelled spiritual agony as His beloved and holy Father, finding Him repulsive on account of all the world's sin that He now bore on His innocent shoulders, turned away from Him. And Jesus was left alone in an unforgiving world that cruicified its King. And yet, Jesus faltered not. He submitted Himself to His destiny, obedient even unto death on the cross. Not for a moment did He doubt that His Father in spite of the silence, loved Him above all things. It is no wonder then that on the third day, Jesus rose again from the dead.

When God is silent, He is not shutting Himself away from you. He is merely allowing you to seek Him in truth and depth. He waits for your response. Will you be faithful like Jesus, knowing that the sun is just behind a cloud and will reappear at any moment? Or is your faith dependant on what benefits you derive from God? We don't doubt the existence of the sun just because day turns to night. Why then would we doubt His love for us just because He elects to hold His peace as is His sovereign choice? Everyday He speaks to us in myriad wonderful ways, but sunk in our mundane lives, we barely notice. However when He fails to deliver the expected feel-good pep speech, He becomes an indifferent God? Very unreasonable, very stupid and very human.

From the lives of great patriarchs in the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah, we see that for a period, God allows us to struggle through on our own, plowing our way through acres of doubt, always pointing our compasses only to the cross. And though it looks like the Lord believes that sometime or the other, saints must walk alone, He's always around the corner waiting to pick us up when we fall! But even if He doesn't, we are called to simply get up and plod on in our Christian walk.

So the next time the heavens fall silent and the Lord seems faraway, remember the example of one Man whose unwavering purpose and faith in His God, changed the history of mankind forever. Remember....Gethsemane!

Psalm 22:1-5 - "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; And by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed.

Come like little children…..

When I was a little girl (and that was some time ago!), I was constantly told that Jesus loved little children, that He honoured their prayers and that it didn’t matter to Him what colour or shape or size they were….with Jesus, all little children were welcome!

I never questioned this…to me, it was a fact of life. Jesus loved little children because little children were special weren’t they? They were cute and endearing and funny and just….special! Everybody loved little children. So what was the big deal about Jesus loving them too? The only tangible benefit I could see in this whole ‘Jesus loves you’ business was that my prayers for a Raggedy-Ann doll at Christmas were much likelier to be answered than a grown-up’s!

At that age, Jesus to me was not an awesome, powerful God….He was my playmate, my brother…..the friend who always hung around with me. I spoke to Him at all odd times of the day and each time I could hear Him reply! His voice I remember was soft and low and sometimes we even laughed together. I took maximum advantage of His attention and would often ask for small favours - like finding a lost textbook the day before a big test or for weather changes depending on whether I had a picnic or a test the next…..and more often than not, He obliged!! Trust me, He did. And I took it all for granted.

As I grew up however, in a strange inexplicable way, this interaction came to a grinding halt. I woke up one day and suddenly realized that I couldn’t hear His voice anymore. It didn’t bother me much at first. I sort of thought He was taking a sabbatical or something…..but slowly, a kind of panic overtook me….a panic that slowly faded into regret when I realized the process was irreversible….a regret I still haven’t overcome today. Somewhere along my journey from childhood to adulthood, I’d lost the ability to converse with the Lord unselfconsciously and with nonchalant ease. Even today, though I have a satisfyingly deep relationship with Him, it is nowhere close to my experience as a child.

In Matthew 19:14, Jesus said “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”. The NIV study Bible says Jesus was referring to the merits of a child’s nature where natural openness and receptivity at the acceptance of gifts abound. I however like to think differently….

In my view, this one little statement whisks us back to the beginning of time, to the book of Genesis where Adam and Eve frolicked in Eden, unaware of nakedness or shame. These were feelings alien to them until that fatal bite into the taboo fruit from the ‘No-No’ Tree. In effect, Adam and Eve were like children – innocent, unbiased, free of hate, prejudice, fear or anxiety. Their interaction with the Lord was personal and face-to-face …….until Adam fell.

That very moment mankind’s innocence was shattered. Since then, I believe the only time we humans glimpse that primal gift of blissful naiveté and artless, guileless state of mind, is in the genuinely simple nature of children.

In my understanding, Jesus demands that we let go of our prejudices that discern between colour, caste, race, religion and creed and learn to love each other the way children do. Children care not if their friends are poor or ugly or fat or even dirty! They do not shy away from another small grubby hand offered in friendship because the owner of that hand has AIDS. They don’t stop to think that they’ve draped their arms around another small body wearing shabby clothes. They don’t see people in terms of black and white, just a world full of colours merging in harmony. In effect, children reflect primal innocence…they remind God of His first human relationships and I think, that’s why Jesus loves them more.

When Adam fell, his eyes of discernment were opened wide. Today, Jesus demands we close them again and walk in faith in His Light instead…….that we give up our view of the world and revert to the innocence of our childhood……are we up to the challenge?