Don’t Quit: Staying Close to God When He Feels Far

Buckle up, buttercups. In three, it's girl talk time. Two, one. (upbeat music) Hello there, you're listening to The Girl Talk Podcast. My name is Carol. I'm Kelly. I'm Tricia. Glad you've joined us today. Have you ever gone through a time in your life where God feels quiet? And you're doing all the right things. You're spending time in God's word. You're praying, but you just feel like God is quiet. What do you do then? You ever had one of those experiences? Oh, sure, yes. Yeah, I mean, I think, yes, so many times, I would love to be able to pull one demand right now, but there's definitely times where, I just feel like God is in answering the prayer, in answering the question that I have. And I know there's a reason, there's gotta be a reason. There's gotta be something he's working out. And I usually just assume that it's because I don't know the plan yet. 'Cause he hadn't written it on an napkin and slated across the universe to me to say, "Here's my God's message, Kelly. I'm gonna give you my plan." He does that for you? Yeah, I don't know what's wrong. Wow, can I read your napkin? That's exactly right. It's when you pick up the napkin. Yeah. When you're walking and you see trash on the ground, and you pick it up, that's the way God communicates. He like, if you're faithful to pick up the trash from the ground, you might find a treasure in there. I'm gonna go pick up some trash. Right, yes, it's my encouragement to not let her. But yes, if we were only privy to what God's doing, we would, at times, be like, oh yeah, okay, I can wait on you, but it's the waiting on what God is doing for him to unveil his plan. But he's got a plan. We gotta trust him for it. Yeah. Right. So even if he doesn't tell us what it is. What is your reaction when you feel like God is silent? What do y'all do? I'm a powder. I throw a fit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like why wouldn't you answer me? And then I tend to default to, oh, you don't love me. Yeah. Why do we always go to that? That's a great question. I don't know why we always go to that. But I do too. Yeah. The worst, I try to take matters into my own hands. That's right. I'm done waiting. I know you're busy. Yes. I got something right. I got something on the back burner. Don't worry. I'm cooking up the plan. Yeah. And that is totally me. I totally look at it and go, OK, God's got too many other things going on. He's not paying attention to me right now. I'll just go handle this for myself. When God is sovereign, he is not busy. He is doing this waiting thing for a reason. It's not because he's too busy. We're not the first ones to do this. We're not the first ones to do this, though. Because I've been reading the Bible in the year. And I've been looking and you know, these gals are like, I'm done waiting for a child. I'm going to take care of it in a different way. Here's my maid. Here's my maid. Go do your thing. And we've all been dealing with the consequences ever since. Right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And then think about Israel. I said, had to wait for 400 years. For no word from the Lord between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. OK. All right. All right. Let's kind of let's rewind the clock a little bit and just imagine that we're at that point where we feel like God's not answering what could be what could the silence mean. I think the first part, the first place we have to start is examining our heart and confessing any sin in our lives. This is one part that I think we forget, especially if you've been in church a long time. People don't like to be told they're sinners, but we all are. We're all sinners. I hate to tell you, but that's the bad news. But you can't have the good news without the bad news, right? The bad news is we're all sinners. We all sin every day, even though we try really hard sin. So the first step I think is to examine our hearts and make sure there's not any sin and ask God to reveal to us. And I'm telling you, that's one prayer he will answer. If you say, Lord, is there some sin in my life that I need to confess and repent of so that we can move forward? So I think that's probably, that's the first place I start. I think that, yeah, not necessarily the first place I would go, but definitely one of the places I go is that I need to decide if he's actually being silent or if he's just not saying what I want him to say, because maybe I'm listening for that thing that I think he's going to say, when in reality, he's saying something totally different. And I just need to listen, I need to actually listen as opposed to constantly talking. I need to actually stop and hear what it is that he has to say, especially if it's not what I want. He's maybe answering the prayer, maybe he's giving me the wisdom, giving me the direction, and it is counter to Kelly Brandon's desires and hopes and dreams. So that's definitely one place we should go, whether or not it's the first place, it's definitely the place we do need to go. All right. Yeah. I always have to ask myself who's in control here, right? Like who is operating in control? Am I waiting on God or am I trying to take over the reins? And that is, that's prideful. That's just pride. I want what I want. I want it the way I want it and I want it when I want it. And so kind of going back to what you said, searching your heart, asking God to search my heart and see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. God show me what it is and usually he does and it's usually pride. Me too. Not good. That's not good. But that's the first place I'll go when things are not happening, when there's a stillness or a quietness or like just something is off. I have to check my heart to see am I operating in pride. I have learned too to talk to God about what I feel like is his silence. Yes. Yeah. And how it impacts you, what you're feeling about his silence. And that has helped me so much, but I don't know why I don't know that anybody ever told me this, but I always thought that if God was being silent, that his silent meant like his absence, right, or his, like, I don't want to deal with you right now. Kind of like I was in spiritual time out. I've been in time out a lot of my life, okay. And I know what that's like, you know, you just have to sit in the corner by yourself. I don't care. I'll go over there until you can behave and play nice with the others, but I don't want us to mistakenly assume that if we feel like God is silent, it's because he's absent. He's never absent. He's always with us. He's always present. He turns when we call his name, you know, all those things that we learn from the Psalms. And so I just don't want us to think that his silence is equal to his absence, because that's not the case. You're making me think of my dog. Just my dog know well. So I've got this dog and I'm her person, you know, she follows me everywhere. And there are times when I'm just sitting still and she just comes and she just lays her head on my leg. And I don't have to do anything, I don't have to give her any treats. She just lays her head on my leg. And it's kind of like, God's silence is an opportunity for us to just lay our heads on his leg and just snuggle up to him. That stillness where we can trust his presence. So when you said that, that made me think about that, because I don't have to do anything, she knows I'm there and just knowing that I'm there is enough for her. Yeah. When you were talking about that, I thought of the verse and I'm forgetting the address of it. So forgive me for that. But wait on the Lord and be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart, you know, wait, I say on the Lord. When you wait with him, that's when you find the strength for whatever it is that is next. But maybe not. Not an answer, but but in the waiting you, it's an action, yeah, it's not an answer, but it's an action. It's something we can do because stillness and waiting is not passive. It's an action. Yeah. I heard somebody say one time, the only thing worse than waiting on God is wishing that you had. Yes. That is so true. Yeah. Yeah. When we try to take over ourselves and solve the problem in the way that we want to solve it in our flesh instead of letting God solve it in the way God wants to solve it in his sovereignty, then we have, it's, you know, it doesn't work out as well for us as we are. As it's going to. Yeah. I just love the picture that both of you painted, the asking the, you know, having a conversation with God about help me understand the waiting, help me understand, let me just talk to you about this silence, let me tell you what I'm feeling. And then this picture of just putting your, you know, head on the shoulder and being like, okay, you know, I know you're silent right now, but just snuggle up to me, God, because I, I just need your presence. I just, I know you're working some out. I trust you. You're the God of the universe. Yeah. And I don't need to own this, but man, this part's hard. Yeah. Um, the waiting's hard, Lord, just help me be in it. [BLANK_AUDIO] confessing to that we want to be in control. I think sometimes that helps me to realize how, not in, 'cause then I say that loud and I'm like, wait, I just say that. - Yeah. - That's totally how I feel, but it sounds so dumb saying to the God of the universe, I just want to be in control of this. He's like, "Yeah, you do it." (laughs) - Scoot over God, let's take the wheel. - That's a good plan here. - Exactly. - And it feels weird when you pray that, but I almost feel like I make God chuckle. - Because you do, there's no question. (laughs) There are those times where I'm like, he is just busing the gut at me right now 'cause he's just like, "Oh, whatever." But, you know, I mean, it is there's some freedom in being open and saying some of those things to him in prayer, in your prayer time. And that's where intimacy is built, right? - Yes, trust and intimacy. - We all know those people we hide from in the grocery store because they are coming to ask us for something, don't we? You know, or you've had from a church 'cause you know, they're gonna ask you to serve on nursery again for the four on G-7 here. We know those people, and none of us wants to be that person. - The just asker. - So sometimes it's just being with God. You know, it made me picture actually the faith of a child. You know, that a toddler doesn't have to worry about their parents' finances, or where they're gonna get their next meal from, or whether or not they're gonna have a house to live in. You know, that's not their worry. That's their parents' worry. They just trust. They just hold, you know, their mom and their daddy's hands or their grandma's hand, and they walk in faith. And wow, if we could do that as children of God, and just say, "Hey, I trust you that much. I'm gonna trust you to just take care of things." 'Cause I don't need to worry about how I'm gonna get to preschool today, 'cause you're gonna take me. - Don't you think how we get there is by really examining the character of God? Because the more we understand and the more we truly believe that He's good and that His plan is good, the more we can let go, the more we can trust, the more we can have peace in the waiting. 'Cause isn't that what we want? We want to have peace in the middle of the waiting. - I will say this too, though. We won't ever understand the whole picture of God. - That's accurate, that's accurate. - Because I think sometimes a tendency is to stay in time to not believe in it if you can't know everything about it. - Yeah. - And we won't ever know all there is to know about God. - Thank goodness. - Right, just that big. - That's right. But we can get to know His character. - Yes. - And I think that's, you know, important. 'Cause I know a lot of people will say, "Well, if I can't understand everything about it, then I don't believe it," you know? I mean, it's like a, you get a 30-day trial and you can learn everything about it in the 30 days. And if you don't like it, you can send it back. That's not, you know. - And what do we know about God's character? - We know that He's loving, He's kind, He's patient, He's faithful, He's trustworthy. He always keeps His promises and He's powerful. - Oh, forgiving. - Yes. - Faithful. - Yes. - We can understand. - Yep. - And it is the understanding of His goodness, I think, that allows us to be okay with waiting. - Yeah. - But we have to remind ourselves of that. - It's just our nature. - All right, so I want you to put yourself where a friend might be right now. They're doing all the right things. I feel like they're checking all the boxes. Still not hearing from God. What do they do now? - I've got one idea. - Okay. - And it's something that I have done, okay? - In these moments. - And it's worship. - Hmm. - It's, I would call it proactive worship, or even offensive worship. It's not a reaction to what's happened. It is a focusing on the goodness of God. - It's good. - So making the choice to worship, even when you haven't seen your answer yet, you've heard that phrase, I like it, that's called, when God hasn't opened a door, prays Him in the hallway, making the choice to worship about the goodness of God, and every time I've done that, and I'm saying every time I've done that, I have achieved a sense of peace that comes from God. It's not necessarily an answer to the question or the prayer request, but it is a peace that comes when I make the choice to worship Him in the middle of it. - So good. So good. - Yeah, I also think that we always come back to finding good, godly women in your lives, because that's part of what's the heartbeat of the Girl Talk podcast. But for me, if you can find that godly person, that godly woman in your life, who you can say, hey, I just need reminder that God is there, that I'm feeling silence. And will you just pray for me? Will you remind me of God's goodness and God's faithfulness? Will you help me stay strong in this hard part of waiting? Will you lock arms with me? Anytime we can engage some other good, godly woman in the struggle that we're going through, we're gonna make it through to the other side a lot easier than that. - And it's good for them too, by the way. - Yeah, sure, the gift that also receives. - My one piece of advice would be, don't quit. - Because for me, if I do something and it's not working, in the allotted time that I think it should be working, what do I do? - I quit. - I've quit so much in my life. And that's not the case spiritually. So just don't quit, keep doing all the things you're doing. Keep praying, keep reading the word, keep worshiping, keep in community 'cause that's where you grow and a lot of people, like you said, a lot of people can learn from your waiting experiences as well. It's just important that you don't quit, don't quit, reading the Bible, don't quit, go into church, don't quit, listening for God. His timetable is not our timetable. And so hope that's helpful for you today. Know that we wanna encourage you, we want to pray for you if there's any way that we can do that. You're always welcome to email us at [email protected]. You're also welcome to text the word prayer to 818-911. When you do that, we'll send you a form where you can fill out details of your prayer requests but you don't necessarily have to. And our team meets every weekday morning at 10 o'clock to pray specifically for your needs. So it'd be an honor to do. - By name. - Just by name, yeah. So get in touch. We're here to serve you and we're gonna save you a seat. Next time we gather around these microphones for the next Girl Talk podcast. (upbeat music)