Why does God seem silent? Why is it that when life gets harder as a Christian, God seems more distant? How come I hear some people say things like “God told me …”, or “God spoke to me and said …”, but I hear nothing? Why doesn’t God just turn up and tell us that he’s real?
These are all questions that I’ve asked myself over the last 14 years of being a Christian. Sometimes they’re just theoretical kind of debates with myself, other times they are really deep and sometimes painful to ponder.
God has spoken
The book of Hebrews starts out with a loud and clear answer: God has spoken. And if it seems like I can’t hear him, then it’s not God who needs to speak louder, or more often. It’s me who needs to listen more carefully. Hebrews was written to a group of Christians who were facing persecution and they were tempted to give up. I guess the silence of God must have been deafening for them.
But how does God speak to us? Hebrews 1:1-2 says, God spoke to us in the past through the Prophets, and now he has spoken to us in Jesus. Jesus is not just some dude, he is God in the flesh, the complete revelation of God. It’s all recorded for us in the Bible. So if you want to hear God speak … go to the Bible!
Does that seem kind of lame though?
There’s a superhero called the Black Canary. She’s good at martial arts, she’s brave and all that … but her superpower is the Sonic Scream. Now THAT sounds lame. But it’s not lame at all! The Sonic Scream can shatter stuff … Joel A Moroney tells me that it can even knock down buildings! (and I thought my daughter could scream loud).
So the Sonic Scream isn’t lame … and neither is the Bible. The power of the Bible is that it transforms your life! I’ve read a lot of books, and no book I’ve ever read has been as life-changing as the Bible. Heck, the more I read it, the more it changes me, and I can’t ever see that coming to an end.
God still speaks through his word
So God has spoken to us through prophets, through Jesus, and it’s all there for us in the Bible. Now what? READ THE BIBLE! Not just read it, but get into it! Read it by yourself, read it with your mates, memorise bits of it, think and talk about how it changes your life, and do it!
Because it’s not that God is distant or silent. He has spoken loud and clear. If you want to hear God speak, get into the Bible, pay more careful attention to it. It might seem lame, but it’s life-changing. And if you want to stick with Jesus for all of your life, then it’s so vital.