Read: Isaiah 64:1–11
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down….Yet, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter. Isaiah 64:1 & 8
As people of faith, we have to come to terms with God’s deafening silence. What does it mean that the Creator of our universe—the molder of our lives—appears reluctant to speak? How can God witness the plight of our world and not intervene? Does God not hear our pleas for assistance? We have this nagging suspicion that God may have abandoned us to make our own way in the world. Or worse, we fear that God’s absence and silence is evidence enough that God does not really exist. Like Isaiah, serious people of faith need to grapple with these serious questions of faith. Why is God silent? Does God not care? “O that God would tear open the heavens and come down!”
And yet, as the work of God’s hands, perhaps we are endowed with all the wisdom, insight, and internal resources we need to meet the demands of life. Perhaps God’s silence is more like that of a father who has done all he can to prepare his children for the challenges of life and thus lets them go. Perhaps God’s silence is the sacred absence of one who entrusts to us the responsibility of tending to creation, knowing we can do it if we try. Perhaps our job is to take the responsibility offered to us and make the most of it.
Is there something you want from God that you are fully able to accomplish for yourself?
Lord, I cry to You in my distress, and You are quiet. Are You not speaking to me, or in the midst of all the noises and busyness of my life, am I simply unable to hear Your voice? Or have You spoken deeply to me from before the moment when I was being knit together in my mother’s womb, and now You trust that I am fully equipped to make it on my own? Lord, help me to accept the responsibility You have offered me. Help me to understand that Your distance might be offered because You believe I am fully capable of making my way in the world. Help me to come to terms with the possibility that Your silence is what allows me the opportunity to attempt to stand up for myself. In Jesus’ name, I pray. AMEN.