When God is Silent - Mining the Catechism

I don’t want to jump too quickly to the “happy side” of unanswered prayers and to ignore the pain of what feels like silence from God. What I do want to hear from the wisdom of the Church and Scriptures, though, is the truth that God is faithful and active despite what my perspective may reveal.

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Q. 1 What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,¹
but belong— body and soul, in life and in death—²

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.³

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,⁴
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.⁵
He also watches over me in such a way⁶
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;⁷
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.⁸

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life⁹
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.¹⁰

¹ 1 Cor. 6:19-20
² Rom. 14:7-9
³ 1 Cor. 3:23; Titus 2:14
⁴ 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:2
⁵ John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:1-11
⁶ John 6:39-40; 10:27-30; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:5
⁷ Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18
⁸ Rom. 8:28
⁹ Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14
¹⁰ Rom. 8:1-17

Q. 2 What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:

first, how great my sin and misery are;¹
second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery;²
third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.³

¹ Rom. 3:9-10; 1 John 1:10
² John 17:3; Acts 4:12; 10:43
³ Matt. 5:16; Rom. 6:13; Eph. 5:8-10; 2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Pet. 2:9-10

Q. 117 What is the kind of prayer that pleases God and that he listens to?

A. First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God, revealed to us in his Word, asking for everything God has commanded us to ask for.¹

Second, we must fully recognize our need and misery, so that we humble ourselves in God’s majestic presence.²

Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation: even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord.

That is what God promised us in his Word.³

¹ Ps. 145:18-20; John 4:22-24; Rom. 8:26-27; James 1:5; 1 John 5:14-15
² 2 Chron. 7:14; Ps. 2:11; 34:18; 62:8; Isa. 66:2; Rev. 4
³ Dan. 9:17-19; Matt. 7:8; John 14:13-14; 16:23; Rom. 10:13; James 1:6

Q. 129 What does that little word “Amen” express?

A. “Amen” means:

This shall truly and surely be!

It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer

than that I really desire what I pray for.^1
1 Isa. 65:24; 2 Cor. 1:20; 2 Tim. 2:13

When God is Silent - Praying the Scriptures

Our praying can be enhanced when we pray using words from Scripture. These prayers are from passages that I have held close at difficult and confusing times in life.

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Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in you, Lord; I will be joyful in you, God my Savior.

You, Sovereign Lord, are my strength; you make my feet like the feet of a deer, you enable me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:16-19)

My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.

But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore. (Psalm 131)

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable your judgments,

and your paths beyond tracing out!

Who has known your mind, Lord? Or who has been your counselor?

Who has ever given to you, God, that you should repay them?

For from you and through you and for you are all things.

To you be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked I will depart. 

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;

may the name of the Lord be praised.” (Job 1:21)

When God is Silent - Preview

This week in worship as we continue our focus on praying we look at praying when God seems silent. Prayer is an act of drawing near to God, but there are times when we feel like God isn’t returning the action. We may be praying boldly, faithfully, persistently and rightly, but there is no perceptible answer. These times can rock us with doubt or even guilt. Is God listening? Does God care? Is this somehow my fault? There is no easy answer to difficult times, but we can be certain that God indeed hears and cares. When God’s plans are not our plans and God’s timing is not our timing, God calls us to trust. In your time of deepest need, may God give you more than you even ask – may he give you himself.

Give Thanks - Learning from Others

– from Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are. Among many threads of thought in this book is one in which she traces out the uses of the Greek verb eucharisteo – “to give thanks.” It is the root of the word “Eucharist” – another name for the Lord’s Supper, because Jesus gave thanks when he took the bread.

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“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…” (Luke 22:19 NIV).

                …I thumb, run my finger across the pages of the heavy and thick books bound. I read it slowly. In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”

I underline it on the page. Can it lay a sure foundation under a life? Offer the fullest life?

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks.

                But there is more, and I read it. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Joy. Ah… yes. I might be needing me some of that…

…Was this the clue to the quest of all most important? Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo – the table of thanksgiving. I sit there long… wondering… is it that simple?

                Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?

                So then as long as thanks is possible … I think this through. As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible…

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We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks.

                Because how else do we accept His free gift of salvation if not with thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our Yes! to His grace.

                Thanksgiving is inherent to a true salvation experience; thanksgiving is necessary to live the well, whole fullest life.

                “If the church is in Christ, its initial act is always an act of thanksgiving, of returning the world to God,” writes Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann. If I am truly in Christ, mustn’t my initial act, too, always be an act of thanksgiving, returning to Jesus with thanks on the lips?

…Thanksgiving – giving thanks in everything – prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.

                The act of sacrificing thank offerings to God – even for the bread and cup of cost, for cancer and crucifixion – this prepares the way for God to show us His fullest salvation from bitter, angry, resentful lives and from all sin that estranges us from Him. At the Eucharist, Christ breaks His heart to heal ours – Christ, the complete accomplishment of our salvation. And the miracle of eucharisteo never ends: thanksgiving is what precedes the miracle of that salvation being fully worked out in our lives. Thanksgiving – giving thanks in everything – is what prepares the way for salvation’s whole restoration. Our salvation in Christ is real, yet the completeness of that salvation is not fully realized in a life until the life realizes the need to give thanks. In everything?

                I would never experience the fullness of my salvation until I expressed the fullness of my thanks every day, and eucharisteo is elemental to living the saved life.

                …All those years thinking I was saved and had said my yes to God, but was really living the no. Was it because I had never fully experienced the whole of my salvation? Had never lived out the fullest expression of my salvation in Christ? Because I wasn’t taking everything in my life and returning to Jesus, falling at His feet and thanking Him. I sit still, blinded. This is why I sat all those years in church but my soul holes had never fully healed.

                Eucharisteo, the Greek word with the hard meaning and the harder meaning to live – This is the only way from empty to full.

Give Thanks - Rooted in Scripture

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 is a very short passage, but it gives us three keys to knowing and doing God’s will. (For any other language geeks out there, the NIV here is a very literal translation of this passage.)

Read. Reflect. Re-read. Act.

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“Rejoice always,

pray continually,

give thanks in all circumstances;

for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Give Thanks - Singing Our Prayers

As I reflect on songs of thanksgiving, so many songs fit the category. Some are songs we traditionally sing around Thanksgiving time (often with a good harvest focus). Others simply sing of the awesome works of God. Even if thanks is never mentioned, the songs make thanks surface in our hearts (for example, 10,000 Reasons, a song we frequently sing in church). Here is one of the classics:

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Let All Things Now Living (Psalter Hymnal 453)

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving  
to God the Creator triumphantly raise,  
who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,  
who guides us and leads to the end of our days.  
His banners are o'er us, his light goes before us,  
a pillar of fire shining forth in the night,  
till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished,  
as forward we travel from light into light.

His law he enforces; the stars in their courses  
and sun in its orbit obediently shine;  
the hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,  
the deeps of the ocean proclaim him divine.  
We too should be voicing our love and rejoicing;  
with glad adoration a song let us raise,  
till all things now living unite in thanksgiving:  
to God in the highest, hosanna and praise!

Text: Katherine K. Davis, 1939.