Have you ever experienced a time when God gives you a wonderful, life-changing revelation? It may come quite simply during a personal devotion, maybe through the word of a brother or sister in Christ but often through an experience when God breaks through to us. But then right after He becomes silent for a long time. In the meantime, you go through a crisis situation. You implore God to speak again but He does not answer. What do you do?
God spoke to Abraham and told him to leave his country and father’s household and go to a land that He would show Abraham later (Genesis 12:1-5). God does not speak to people this way very often so this revelation was life-changing for Abraham. He responded in faith, leaving the place of his birth even though he did not know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). God would appear to Abraham a few more times after that but the intervals between God’s revelations would often number in years.
Now put yourself in Abraham’s place. Imagine God suddenly showing up from nowhere to tell you to relocate to another country with a promise that He would settle you in that land, give you a bright future and build a nation through you. Excited by this extraordinary encounter you take God at His word, you go and make it to that country. But after a few years you do not hear from God again. Eventually that country goes through an economic crisis, you are hit hard as a result and you are left wondering what to do next.
This is what happened to Abraham. After Abraham reached Canaan and God told him this was the land that He was giving him and his descendants, a famine struck. When God was silent, Abraham packed up his bags, left Canaan and went down to Egypt with Sarah and his retinue. This action would subsequently result in Abraham lying about his wife Sarah in an attempt to cover her true identity and to protect himself (Genesis 12:10-13).
Abraham would subsequently make more mistakes after this episode. But as Oswald Chambers explains, these came not because of willful disobedience but as a result of Abraham trusting in his wits. When God spoke and his command became clear, Abraham immediately obeyed. But when God became silent, he was inclined to trust in his own rationality.
Perhaps you have experienced something similar. God gives you an exciting revelation and then becomes silent for a long time. You go through what seems like a wasteland experience or worse, a crisis strikes that seems to contradict His plans for you. It is at this point that most people do what is most natural for them: to come up with their own contraptions to find a way forward. Many become uneasy, confused, or depressed and then begin plotting their own course.
But what we can learn from Abraham’s experiences in his journey of faith is that if God gives us a word that word is enough until it is fulfilled. There is something immature in wanting or even demanding a new word, a new revelation, or a new experience every so often. When God speaks to us once, His word is enough. It may be that God wants us to have a more mature comprehension of our relationship with Him by learning to walk by faith on what He has revealed rather than demanding that He speak to us and assure us often like a father to some spoiled son or daughter.
It is also crucial that we do not fall into unbelief at this point. Our common sense might tempt us to abandon our faith in God for our own schemes. If such a situation comes after a time of experiencing quiet confidence in God, we should thank God for it and hold fast. God will ultimately reward our confidence (Heb. 10:35-39).
Most of the time we won’t know why God remains silent, especially during times when we yearn for Him to speak to us. Many people will say that when this happens it is because God is testing our faith. A bible commentator said that during the times we think God isn’t saying or doing anything He is doing the work most important to Him: developing our character and transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28, 29). All of which might be true but we cannot really be certain about God’s reasons or intentions at this point in time. Again, it is ultimately a matter of trust in Him.
The good news is that when we learn to trust Him, He remains faithful even though we make mistakes the way Abraham, the rest of the patriarchs and “giants of faith” did. And He is able to patiently correct us along our own journey of faith, continually molding and refining us into the kind of people He intends us to be. So when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac in a seeming contradiction of God’s revealed plans, Abraham obeyed, trusting that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:19). It was a faith refined from years of learning to patiently wait upon and trust in God.
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