The sound of silence.

Has anybody ever experienced that? It could be when you message a friend to ask them a question or see how they're doing and they never respond, or when you make a phone call and your call is never returned. Those are just two simple and honestly, quite silly examples, but it's amazing how feeling ignored can affect our mental state so much. I know it affects me a lot. 

Does this train of thought sound familiar? 

"Why do they never respond to my texts? I know they're there... They always have their phone on them and are constantly on it so I know they saw my text. Why aren't they answering?" 

The most infuriating. Thing. Ever. 

The funny thing is, I am totally guilty of doing the same exact thing. 

Burn. 

But the point of this post isn't to talk about how annoying it is when people don't respond when you try to talk to them. Even if you aren't purposefully being ignored, feeling like you're being ignored is not a fun place to be in either. There are so many times in my life where I just sit there trying to reason with myself and tell myself that I am not being ignored... They're probably just busy and they'll get back to me when they get a chance. After all, I'm sure that I'm guilty too. But thinking about this simple, everyday "issue" if you will, that comes up in our lives, it made me think about how it feels when God is seemingly silent and our prayers reach no higher than the roof above our heads. Does God ignore us? 

"Why does God never answer my prayers? Why does it feel like He's not with me anymore? Why doesn't He answer?"

There are times when everything seems completely impossible and so utterly hopeless and bleak. Times when we are begging God for answers, to know the whys and the hows and the whens. 

But He is silent. 

Somehow it is way scarier to have God be the one who is silent as opposed to people. You can’t force God to listen to you. How do you know He hears? 

I would say that the sound of silence is very possibly one of the most painful things in existence. It doesn't portray hope or peace... It is the essence of feelings of betrayal and hurt and doubt. Where is God? Where was God? 

Why is it that sometimes we can't hear God or feel God or see His hand anywhere? It is during these times that doubt sets in. Does God really hear me? Does he care? Does he see that I don't understand? Does He see that I'm barely hanging on? 

There have been times in my life when I didn't know if He was really there. I thought I heard His voice promising me one thing... And then the opposite happened. 

What?!

I thought that God always kept His promises to those who love and seek after Him! I thought that God's Word never returned void but always accomplished what He said! I thought that He was always with me, even when things got hard and scary and dark. 

So why wasn't He there? 

Why didn't He stay with me? 

Forsaken. 

That is how you feel. 

Completely lost and alone and rejected by the very one who created you. 

I will say this. The scripture is true... God's word NEVER returns void. Never. He always does what He says He'll do, He never leaves us, He never forsakes us, He never breaks His promises,  even when it seems like He is a million miles away and we question whether or not God even exists, and if He does, if he can even see us or hear us or care about us. 

But is God's word really reliable? 

The answer is yes. God's word is reliable because God is reliable. God doesn't lie, He doesn't change, God doesn't lead you astray. He leads you in paths of righteousness! He restores your soul!

It's easy to trust God when things are going well. It's easy to trust Him when you can feel His presence and see His hand moving in amazing, mighty ways. But what about the times when you can't feel or see Him? What about those dark nights when you can't do anything but barely hang on and you can only hear lies? How do you get healing and hear truth when God is silent and your prayers bounce off the ceiling back down to you and can never make it up to Him? 

The key is to find one thing to hang on to. One sign, one faint glimmer that God is there. I use this in music a lot... If I'm learning a song that I don't particularly enjoy, I try to find one thing in the song that I just absolutely love. Something that makes my soul rise so that as I'm playing the song, I tell myself that if I can just get to that one section of beautiful, melodious bliss, then it's worth playing the other parts that I don't enjoy. And I make that sections as beautiful and elaborate as I can and put all my feeling into it and feel the thrill of the notes actually coming alive with depth and meaning. 

During those dark, lonely nights when fear is all we can feel and you don't think that you can make it another day like this, we have to find something that hang on to, something that reminds us that God is there. God does hear. 

You are not forsaken. 

No matter how forsaken you feel, it is utterly impossible for it to be true because guess what? God said that he would NEVER leave or forsake you. Therefore, it is literally impossible for you to be forsaken! Remember? God's word does not return void and He always keeps His promises to those who love Him. 

God never leaves His people to guess what He expects of them. I believed that I heard from God and then the opposite happened, so I second guessed myself and doubted myself and God. My conclusion, finally, was that I just didn't actually hear from God. Or maybe that wasn't even Him talking. Maybe I just made it up in my head? The disappointment of things not going the way that I thought they would was damaging and caused pain and heartache. 

The answer isn't doubt. 

The answer is hanging onto every word, ever glimmer, ever sign that God sends you and trusting that He meant what He said and that everything happens in His timing. Not ours. And do you know what? The promise that I thought that God had so clearly spoken did come to pass. It certainly didn't come like I thought it would, but it came nevertheless. How much easier it would have been had I kept my eyes on Him and not allowed myself to believe that maybe God really doesn't keep His promises. 

The point is that I'm trying to make is that God always does what He says He'll do. 

His word cannot change. Never has, never will. For me, that is the glimmer of hope that I have to hold on to. God always keeps His word. God hears all my prayers. God sees all my tears. God sees all my brokenness, and He would never not answer one who is calling out to Him. He is near to the broken hearted. He is near to those who call upon Him in truth. He saves those who are crushed in spirit and who feel so worn and weary that they don't know if they can make it another day. He gives us true rest.