“It’s STILL across the street. It’s STILL across the street. STILL across the street!” Have you ever sung this along at the soccer stadium or in the schoolyard? Laugh it up! But do you ever feel like it’s really quiet across the street? Or rather the top? What if the sky silent? That it stays quiet in heaven when you pray. That you can’t get in touch with God. What do you do, when heaven remains silent?
The silence of God
It’s enough to drive a man crazy, it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from thy staff and thy rod
And heaven’s only answer is the silence of God
The silence of God. It is maddening, painful and sad. There is a great sadness hidden in this song by Andrew Paterson. What if heaven remains silent while you so desperately want contact with God?
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ACCORDEON LYRICS (beneath the page)
Is prayer a quick fix?
When someone is uncomfortable or sad you often want to cheer someone up right? Say something that makes them feel better. Give them a little boost. But sometimes life is hard. Sometimes you experience such intense things in life that you don’t want to feel better at all. Well-meaning Bible texts may fly by your ears. Here are no well-intentioned texts but a desire to seek with you a connection with God.
Why is the sky silent?
Prayer is not a quick fix. Not just a pick-me-up to make you feel better. Prayer is talking to God. Explaining to God what you need, how you feel. Sharing your heart. Of course it’s nice when you can give thanks for the wonderful things in your life, but it’s also so important that you really show yourself to God. Isn’t it the same in normal life? In friendships? That you give each other a look into your heart. Are these not often the most beautiful conversations? Where you can take off your mask and no longer have to keep up appearances? Especially with all your frustrations, anger, disappointment and sadness. It can be so nice to share that with someone.
Yet we often think that God is not waiting for that. Then we feel burdened or ungrateful when we show that side of ourselves to God. But if we are not real, do not show our true emotions, how can God comfort you?
Show your true emotions
The sky looks like copper
Have you ever heard this expression? As if nothing can get through to heaven. As if the heavens are locked. Heaven seems to remain silent. You pray, but the message just doesn’t seem to get across up there. Interestingly, this expression comes from the Bible itself, from the book of Deuteronomy. And that the meaning there is just the opposite. That nothing from heaven can get through to earth because people are no longer in touch with God and go their own way. Even though the sky seems silent.
Sometimes it can help to stop sending for a moment and to see if the reception on your side is still good. Check to which side the door opens. Maybe you are trying with all your might to push open the door to God, but the door is actually turning towards you. By pushing, you don’t get it open. What if God is also trying to open the door on the other side?
Check your reception
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With me the sky remains silent – am I the only one?
When you don’t experience a connection with God, it can feel very lonely. You feel alone. Misunderstood. By God but therefore sometimes also by others. Do you ever hear special stories from people about their experiences with God and you only think: good for you, but I get no hearing from God … These beautiful stories can strengthen your feelings of loneliness. But there are also other stories. From people who also experience that heaven is closed. They cry out to God. Even Jesus shouts out to God on the cross: Why have you forsaken me? It may surprise you, but the Bible contains stories like this. When you hear their story, it can almost depress you. And the sky seems silent. That is how rejected they feel by God.
Complain
It is so dark around me,
that it seems I am already dead and buried.
I don’t see a way out anymore.
He has put me in chains.
I cry out to Him for help,
but He doesn’t listen to me.
I can’t go any further,
For He is blocking my way.
Yes, this is really from the Bible, from the book of Lamentations. The name says it all…there’s a lot of complaining. There are people who would rather skip the book for a while. It doesn’t really make you happy. And isn’t there an expression: don’t complain but bear it? Just swallow and carry on. Yet it is not without reason in the Bible. Apparently God allows us to complain. As long as we complain to God! Shout it out!
It’s okay to complain!
David cries out:
God, listen to my prayer!
Don’t pretend that You don’t hear me.
Please listen to me and answer me.
I cry out to You.
David cries out to God
Do you recognize this feeling of David? The writer of this psalm is on the run at the time. He has been betrayed by his friends. His life is one big chaos. He doesn’t understand a thing and cries out to God. While pleading and crying, his prayer changes because the same psalm ends with: “I trust in You.” Not because he feels that way, but because he chooses to trust God. If sometimes you don’t experience God in your life, sometimes you have to make a conscious choice to trust him. Even if you don’t feel him.
Choose to trust
Job doesn’t want to pray anymore
“What is the use of praying anymore?”, cries Job. His story is described in detail in the Bible. How he is a prosperous and very religious man. But he loses everything. His job, possessions and his family. And then he also gets sick. God suddenly seems very far away. Heaven closed. He doesn’t understand why this is happening to him now. Why should he pray anymore?
Job is very honest with God, but also with his friends. He no longer keeps up appearances. And God? Is He abandoning him completely, now that he is no longer crying out in glory hallelujah? Precisely not! It is at this moment that God begins to speak. He shows how God is present in everything and that Job may trust Him. With Job, fortunately, all is well again. And his relationship with God becomes deeper and more intense. Precisely because of the heavy tests that their relationship has gone through.
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Praying together
Let these stories from the Bible give you hope and recognition. You’re not the only one who sometimes feels like heaven stays silent. And you don’t have to stay alone with that feeling either. Perhaps you know people in your community who have a relationship with God? Ask if they would like to help you. Share your desire to connect with God. You can ask them to pray for you or if you trust them enough, to pray together. Let their story give you hope and not just be a reminder that things are different with you. For what is not, may come. Trust in that. Don’t give up. Even though the sky seems silent.
Share your desire to have contact with God
Do you need conversation or would you like us to pray for you? Send us a message here and our e-coaches will be happy to talk with you further.
Lyrics Silence of God
It’s enough to drive a man crazy, it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from thy staff and thy rod
And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God
It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God
And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
‘Cause we all get lost sometimes…
There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone
All His friends are sleeping and He’s weeping all alone
And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God
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