All tagged Silence

As you look behind you can you see that God has had His hand upon you, and has been helping you? Have you praised Him for His help, and perhaps even honored Him by raising a monument of some type to Him... a stone of help, or Ebenezer as it is called? Perhaps it was a sapling, if you are wealthy it was an inscription on a building, or if you are poor a pile of rocks. Whatever it is do you think His helping you has ended? No, His help continues, despite what has happened in our lives His help never ceases.

How many times have we disappointed Jesus, or God our Father? How many times have we felt such remorse that it drove us to our prayer closets in deep contrition, and how many of us cry tears of remorse? Peter wept when he realized that not only had he denied Christ, but that Jesus knew this was going to happen even as he was pledging his love and dedication... so great is the love of Jesus for us that he loves us while we are yet sinners, and can see our coming tears, even hearing our contrition as an echo.

Do we pray and hear only silence in return? Are we satisfied to live out our spiritual lives in the silence of God? Well this is not what a faithful soul should expect; our lives should be spent seeking, listening, and obeying the voice of God. When we have become content with silence we have become accustomed to being separated from God, and this should be fearful and torturous to us.

Are you filled with sadness and depression today? In particular, is there a void within you because of a feeling of separation from God? There is no loneliness greater than to be in a place without God’s presence, but if that is your feeling today then take heart, and call on the name of Jesus because He too walked through the valley of the shadow of death... just as you are now doing.

What is it about prayer that we value the most? Is it the time spent with God? The comfort it brings us? Knowing that we are heard? Realizing that we are never alone? Finding joy in praying for others? The list goes on and on doesn’t it... but the one thing that stifles our spiritual lives more than any other is making the answer to our prayers paramount in gauging the success of our prayer lives; and not just answers, but those we have dictated, or in other words, when we want OUR will to direct God’s answer to our prayers.