We’re continuing a discussion about the unseen struggles of leadership.
You can catch up here.

Here’s #2:

Sometimes God goes silent

And He does it at the most inconvenient times.
Like right in the middle of your sermon prep for the all important Easter message.
You pray, study, pace the floor, pray, study, eat lunch at your desk, listen to a Hybels sermon for inspiration, think to yourself “Man, Bill Hybels is a freaking genius with a big vocabulary… I’m a moron and have no business preaching”. Then you turn to channel 19 and watch a local TV preacher turn 3 shades of red screaming about the whore of Babylon and reason “Ok, maybe I’m not so bad”, pray some more, study some more, and still can’t come up with fresh content or creative angles.

Or like when the contract for the property is sitting on your desk and you begin to second guess the location. You felt sure about it this morning, but now there’s a queasy feeling in your stomach.
And you ask God for a simple confirmation: Check Yes or No.
And you don’t hear anything.
Or feel anything.
No supernatural signs. No deep impressions in your soul.
Nothing.
And you’ve got to make the decision yesterday.

Or when you desperately need to feel affirmed that you did the right thing after you made a hard leadership call that deeply affected someone you love, but no one shows up to pat you on the back and present you with a trophy for most courageous decision.

Nobody ever told me this, but it’s really hard for leaders to hear from God sometimes.
And when we say we’re absolutely sure God told us something, we mean we’re, like, 85% sure.
That’s about as good as it gets for me anyway.
Because I’m a sin scarred human with unpredictable emotions, shaped by diverse life experiences, and limited in my understanding of the mind of God.

And it seems like the closer you get to a big breakthrough, the harder it is to hear, feel, or perceive God’s instruction.
One of my mentors told me that the reason God seems strangely silent at the times when we need Him the most is that teacher is always quiet during the test.

Sometimes I feel like God is speaking to me so rapidly that I need a bigger hard drive and a faster operating system to record it all.
Other times I feel like someone must have hit the mute button on God.

Here are some steps to take when God goes silent:

1. Keep doing the last thing He told you to do.
2. Examine whether there’s any sin/pride in your heart that would prohibit you from clearly hearing His voice. If so, come clean and move forward.
3. Read the simple stuff in the Bible and obey it. You can’t go wrong there.
Maybe God isn’t showing you His concealed will because you won’t even obey His revealed will.
4. Be very excited. I’ve learned that when I can’t hear my 22 month old son upstairs, it’s because he’s up to something. It’s usually not good.
If God isn’t making much noise in your life right now, it might be because He’s up to something. Something good.
5. Always remember in the darkness what God told you in the light.
If God promised, He will deliver.