When God Is Silent

When do I go and when do I stay? When do I step out and when do I stand still? When do I sit and when do I heel? Sometimes I wish God treated me like His nice little house dog. Every time He spoke, I would act. “Roll over. Get off the couch. Sit. Jump. Don’t make on the carpet!” If God would simply treat me like His pet poodle and order my every move, life would be easy and stress free. But unfortunately, God doesn’t always speak. Sometimes He’s all too silent.

When I think God should be shouting orders at me, I often hear nothing. And other times when I’m not even listening for His voice, He speaks and stops me dead in my tracks. But I can never quite tell exactly when He’s going to speak and when He’s going to remain silent. This is quite frustrating. In fact, I kinda hate that about God (WARNING: shameless book plug in 3…2…1…) I wrote a book about such things called Stuff I Hate About God, coming Oct. 1^st from Charisma House! (I warned you.)

I’ve often struggled with big decisions. When I was younger, I wanted to hear from God every time I took a breath. I prayed about when to turn the TV on, when to turn the TV off, what brand of coffee to drink, which coaster to set the coffee on, and which recliner to sit in while drinking said coffee off said coaster. It drove my wife crazy. And I was always frustrated when God failed to divinely reveal the most comfy recliner.

This image causes me great stress.

I eventually realized (through the words of a wise sage) that when decisions must be made, sometimes God speaks and offers divine revelation and other times He doesn’t speak at all; He simply allows us to use our God-given wisdom to make decisions.

God doesn’t typically care which coffee I drink, as long as it’s not branded with 666 and a pentagram. And I only have one recliner now so I can avoid that stressful predicament altogether. The point is, God has given me this little thinking thing in my head that enables me to pick my coffee and my recliner from time-to-time without His direct intervention (but with much input from my wife).

So, we approach each major recliner decision the same way—pray first, act second. If God speaks, then we can be certain we’re sitting in the right recliner. If He doesn’t speak, I highly recommend that you over-analyze every possible recliner sitting scenario, play each one out in your head 100 times, talk to every family member, mentor, and spiritual parent you have, and beat that dead horse as if it’s a rug on fire. That’s what I do anyway. And once I’ve done all this and annoyed my wife to no end, I eventually have to just pick one and sit. Although I must admit, I’ve regretted my final choice a time or two (of the chair, that is–not of my wife).

My wife prefers it when God just audibly reveals the best recliner.

And really… so do I.