When God feels silent

00:09Pastor Ken:Faith versus feelings when God feels silent. Trusting God when you can't hear him or see what he's doing. Today on Real Talk with PK. Hey everyone, welcome back to Real Talk with PK. We're continuing our series on faith versus feelings. Who wins when what you feel conflicts with what God says. Last week, you and I, we talked about can our feelings be trusted? We discovered that feelings are real and that they matter, but they're not always reliable. And today we're going to go into

01:00Pastor Ken / Pastor Todd: a place where the truth, that truth gets tested. Because what happens when you pray and nothing happens? What happens when you ask God for direction but you don't get, you don't hear anything? What happens when you need God to move and heaven seems quiet? That's where faith gets real. Because it's one thing to trust God when he's answering. It's another thing to trust Him when he feels silent. PT You ever felt like that before in your life? Where it's ever happened to you? Where you pray and God feels silent? Oh yeah, yeah, I've had those times, yeah. It's tough. For sure it is. It is. It feels like you're spinning your wheels and don't know where you're supposed to go. But. Yeah. And does God really care? Yeah. You know, a lot of people think

02:00Pastor Ken / Pastor Todd: that it's tough, isn't it? Yeah, but. I mean, he was silent for what, 300 years? For Israel, 400 years. 400 years for between the the Old and the the New Testament, yeah. So. Yeah, I mean, couple days isn't bad. No, it's not. But you know, a lot of people do have issues with this. I've had issues with it. Pastor Todd just said he had issues with it. And so it is. It is tough, but I want you to know that God loves us and he'll never leave us abandoned nor forsaken. So I want you to hold on to that thought as we go through this podcast tonight. I want to start off with an opening story. I don't know if you, I'm sure you remember when you when school and the teacher is silent during the test. You remember those days, think back when you were young.

03:02Pastor Ken:Some of you, you got to think back a long, long time ago. But when you were in school, the teacher spent days teaching you the material in. They explained the lessons and they answered questions that you might have had, and they prepared you for that test. But eventually test day came, right? Something changed. It's the same teacher who have been teaching you all week but suddenly became quiet. You know, you could raise your hand and say, hey, can you explain this answer or this number to me? I don't really understand it. And the teacher just simply smiles and says, I can't help you with that. Why? Well, has the teacher abandoned you during that test taking? No. Has she stopped teaching you or stopped caring for you? No. Has the teacher forgotten what you needed? No, the teacher was quiet because now it was time for you

04:03Pastor Ken:to take the test. And what you had already been taught you got to bring back to remembrance. And I wonder if there are seasons in our lives, in our walk with God, that you and I feel the same way. We feel like we're in a test. We're praying God say something, we raise our hand. God, do you see me right? And, and maybe God's reminding us that I've already given you the truth and I want you to stand on it. I've already given you my word. I want you to read it, study it. The answers are there for you. I think there are moments when God speaks loudly, and then there are seasons when faith has to remind us that God is the same God when he's quiet. And those are very difficult times for you and I. It's hard to get through things like that in our lives.

05:02Pastor Ken:But that's why this podcast is so important for you and I because a lot of times God is absent, but he is with us. He's with us and he is silence, but he is not absent. So that's that's my first point that I want to tell you is silence doesn't mean absence. Silence doesn't mean absence. And if you look in your Bible, in Psalms chapter 13 verse one, it says David cries, How long, Lord? How long will you forget about me? And I love the honesty of David in the Scriptures. David loved God, David trusted God. David was called a man after God's own heart. And David still had moments when he said, God, where are you? God, where are you? And that means feeling God's absence doesn't necessarily mean that you've lost your faith.

06:03Pastor Ken:OK? Sometimes it means that your faith is being tested. Now. David felt forgotten, but he wasn't forgotten. You and I feel forgotten at times, but we're not forgotten. And I think that's the important distinction for you and I. What David felt was real, but what David felt wasn't reality. I'm going to say that again. What David felt was real in the Scriptures when he writes it. God, have you abandoned me? But it wasn't the reality. It's kind of like the illustration of the sun behind the clouds. You know, on cloudy days, you walk outside, you don't see the sun, but you know, the sun is there. Now nobody says, well, the sun doesn't exist anymore because the clouds can hide the sun without removing it, right? That's how it is sometimes. Our circumstances can sometimes hard hide our awareness of God without removing his presence.

07:05Pastor Ken:And I know that that's hard to hear at times, but God is with us. And he, you might feel like he's hidden from you, but he's there with you. And I think God can be hidden from your feelings without being absent from your life. I'm going to say that again. God can be hidden from your feelings without being absent from your life. And it's so important that we understand that key truth #2 I believe that God delays are not God's denials. His delays are not God's denials to us. You look at the story in the Bible in John Chapter 11, in the Gospel of John verses, I think it's three through 6. Mary, Martha sent word to Jesus, and the word was Lord. The one that you love is sick. Well, they knew Jesus could heal Lazarus.

08:02Pastor Ken:They knew that, and they knew that He loved them, him. And Scripture says something remarkable. It says that Jesus stayed where he was for two more days. So he got the word from them, but he stayed two more days. Now I want you to think about that for a moment. Why did Jesus stay two more days? They prayed, Jesus heard, Jesus cared, and Jesus didn't immediately move. So from their perspective, it looked silent. From God's perspective, something bigger was unfolding, right. So by the time that Jesus arrived, Lazarus had died. Martha essentially said, Lord, if you had, if you would have been here, he wouldn't have died. Haven't you and I all been there? Haven't we been there where we say, God, if you would have

09:03Pastor Ken:answered this prayer, I wouldn't have gone through what I went through. God, if you would have opened that door, God, if you would have healed me, God, if you would have intervened. But Jesus wasn't late. He was preparing to reveal something that maybe you and I have never seen before. You ever think about that? They wanted a healing. Jesus wanted a resurrection. Mary and Martha wanted their brother to be healed. Jesus said I got something better, I'm going to resurrect him from death to life again. So sometimes I think God doesn't answer the way you and I want him to answer, or the way you and I expect Him to answer, because I think He's doing something greater than you and I could ever dream or even see. And that's how God works most of the time.

10:02Pastor Ken:He sees the end game. He sees the light through the end of the forest. He knows beginning to the end. We only see part. That's all we do. We only see part of it. We don't get to see the whole thing. And that's where faith comes in, right? So #3 silence. Silent seasons develop deeper faith. Silent seasons develop deeper faith. Hebrews 11/1 the Hall of Fame chapter of Faith, right? Faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see. Did you hear the word? Faith isn't necessary when everything is visible. Faith becomes necessary when you can't see and when you can't understand and when we don't have the answers and when we don't know what is next. You. Look, I hate to say this, but winter's coming.

11:03Pastor Ken / Pastor Todd: It's already August. Can you believe that? August. What? What is today? August 12th, I think. I think it's the 12th. Yeah, the 12th. So we're almost halfway through August already. It seems like we just celebrated the 4th of July. And now it's August 12th. So winter's coming. I'm bracing. But you know what? I did read the Farmers Almanac today. I'm a sucker for those and it said that we're going to have a warmer and drier winter. But we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. They were pretty accurate last year they were. They said we're going to be more wet and colder and we were. We had lots of snow and it was cold. So hopefully less snow drier. I like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean it would be nice. It would be very less snow. Oh yeah. So I say all that to say this. My illustration is roots in the winter. So in Michigan, we go through winter here and we go through

12:02Pastor Ken:the fall. The leaves fall, the trees go dormant, right? So there's no leaves, there's no flowers on the trees, there's no fruit. So if you're looking at that tree from the outside, it looks pretty dead, right? But underground, the root system is still alive. That's how that tree comes back in the spring. Something is happening where you and I can't see it. And I think sometimes God does his deepest work. Whenever you don't see it happening in your life, right, you don't feel it, you don't sense it, you don't understand it. God's doing a deep work. It's all underground. Nobody applause it, nobody sees it. Sometimes you don't even recognize it. But God is deepening your roots and it's powerful and it's life changing and it's hard to go through, but it's true.

13:01Pastor Ken:So God may be doing his deepest work during a season of your life that you see the least evidence of fruit. OK, you're like, I'm not getting anything in my life right now though the heavens are brass. When I pray God is not answering, can I tell you that I believe God's doing the greatest work in your life? In those dry seasons that you feel are happening to you #4 when you can't hear God, remember what He has already said. This is why the Word of God is so powerful in our life. This is why we need to be in the Word of God each and every day. This point is huge because when God feels silence in your life, you can't manufacture a new word. You don't need to manufacture a new word.

14:00Pastor Ken:You go back to the word He's already given you, the word. God has already said I will never leave you nor forsake you. God has already said My grace is sufficient for you. God has already said I am with you always. God has already said all things work together for the good. Good. Come on somebody, you don't need a new promise every morning. Sometimes you just need to stand on the promises that God has already given you through His word. It's the anchor that holds. It's the word of God. An anchor doesn't stop the storm. It stops the storm from carrying the ship away. Well, God's Word is your anchor. Your emotions may move, your circumstances may move, people may move, but the anchor of God's Word holds true. It holds true. So I have often said this, when

15:00Pastor Ken:you can't trace His hand, you trust His heart. You trust His heart. That is key to do that. When we can't see His hand, you have to trust God's heart. Where's his heart? It's in His word. It's in His word and you got to stay in the Word, friend. Next, don't let silence make you right the wrong story. Don't let the silence make you right a wrong story. This is where feelings become very dangerous for you and I because God gets quiet and we can fill in the blanks. So, for example, God's silence. So here's my blank filler. God must be angry with me or another one. God doesn't care, or God has forgotten me, right? Have you ever said those things? Or maybe maybe prayer doesn't work anymore. Or maybe God doesn't come is, is going to come through for me. I, I want us when we begin to

16:04Pastor Ken:want to say these things, when we want to fill in the blank, so to speak. I want us to be careful because I don't want you and I to interpret God's character through our circumstances. I don't want that to happen, and many people do that. I want you to interpret your circumstances through God's character. It's a polar opposite. You know God's character through his word. You know he's faithful. God says in Isaiah, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. So you're looking at 1 chapter in the Bible and God sees the entire book, right? You see, today he sees eternity. I mean, just think of that. We, we, we read 1 chapter. He sees the entire book. He wrote it. I mean, so we have to trust the process of what God is doing in our lives.

17:00Pastor Ken:Don't judge God's goodness from unfinished chapter in your life, an unfinished point in your life. It's going to get there. God's going to fulfill it, but you got to wait on the Lord. Those who wait on the Lord, the Bible says your strength will be renewed. We got to wait. We got to wait on the Lord. He cares for us. And number six, I want you to know that you got to keep showing up when you don't feel anything. This has been big for me in my life. I had to keep showing up when I didn't want to, when I didn't feel like it anymore. When we started CrossPoint, it was very hard. It was very tough on me and I don't want to do it anymore. And I'm year in going into two years. In the first year my house didn't even sell. So I'm driving back and forth 2 1/2 hours to preach to like 10 to 12 people on a Sunday night after I've already preached at my previous church in the Sunday morning service because I was

18:03Pastor Ken:filling in the pulpit until they found their pastor and, and I felt like I was just spinning my wheels. And I mean, it was fine, 12 people, but it's just like I left a bigger church and now I'm down to 12 people again. And you just feel like you're starting all over. And yet you, I knew in my heart that God told me to do it and yet doubt still wanted to creep in. So I had to keep showing up when I didn't want to. And I think this is where your faith becomes mature. This is where when you pray, your prayers feel more powerful. And it's, it's amazing when you keep on showing up when worship, when you worship and you feel God's presence, but when you don't worship and you don't feel like worshiping God, you still

19:02Pastor Ken:show up. I mean, it's, it's powerful. It's, it's life changing when you don't want to read God's word, but then you read God's word and literally it just jumps off the pages and ministers to you. You got to keep serving, You got to keep trusting, you got to keep walking. Why? Why is this so important? Because faithfulness isn't based on our feelings. Habakkuk chapter 3 essentially says, even if the crop fails, even if the fields produce nothing, even if everything around me looks wrong, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will rejoice in the Lord. What is that? That's mature faith. It's saying, God, I'm not worshiping you only for what you can do for me. I'm worshiping you because of who you are. He's a good God. And so life does get hard. It's difficult at times, but you

20:00Pastor Ken:got to keep showing up. You got to keep putting the effort through and look it. I mean, I'm amazed at what God is doing at CrossPoint Church. It's, it's truly humbling. And I I think back often of those times that I wanted to quit. We wouldn't have what we have today. We wouldn't be where we are. We wouldn't be ministering to thousands of people. Literally we, we have ministered to thousands of people through the years, coming through these doors, on the Internet, through YouTube now, I mean, the people that we're touching. It wouldn't have happened if I gave up, if I threw in the towel, if I said, Lord, I can't do this. You have to show up, friends, you have to show up. It's worth it because God's for you. He's not against you. So in closing, I, I want to give you, as I always do, some practical applications for you to just latch onto. So I, I captioned this.

21:02Pastor Ken:What do I do when God feels silent? So what do I do when God feels silent? Well, number one, I think one of the most best things you can do is be honest with God. That's really helped me. When I was mad at God, I let him know. And so David was God can handle your questions. You read the Psalms. A lot of the Psalms that David wrote are questions to God. God, don't you care? Where are you? Why aren't you coming through for me? Are you not hearing my prayers anymore? I mean, they're just honest questions that David had for God. Two, you got to go back to Scripture. That's what I did. You got to go back to Scripture. Don't build theology around difficult seasons. You build your life around God's Word. That's exactly what you do. You build your life around God's Word. 3 is, remember God's past faithfulness.

22:03Pastor Ken:If he carried you before, He's going to carry you again. That has really helped me. God, if you did that five years ago, you're going to do it today. God, we have a miracle. We need a miracle, Lord, and I remember you did it 10 years ago, You're going to do it again today. He doesn't change. He knows, He knows. So don't #4 don't make permanent decisions during temporary emotional seasons of your life. Silence can make us impatient. So stay steady, stay steady, stay on course, and #5 keep doing the last thing you know God told you to do. Keep doing the last thing that God told you to do so you don't need new instructions every day. You remain faithful. I had to make a determination. I'm going to stay the course even though it's difficult, even though I don't like it. I'm going to stay the course even when pastors are elders and, and deacons.

23:02Pastor Ken:When I'd go in during starting CrossPoint, I would fill pulpits of churches all across Michigan. And I had I had leaders of their churches come up to me and say, Hey, would you submit your resume to us? We'd like to consider you as a candidate for our church. And I'm like, no, I can't. And these were churches of 500 people and one was close to 800. And I was like, oh, and I'd look at my wife. I had that on 2 occasions, 2 or 3 occasions. And I looked at my wife and she looked at me and I'm like, you know what, We'd love to. We're honored that you would even think of us that way. But we're planning a church in South Lyon area and that's really where we're focused on right now. And then you leave that church parking lot and you're like, did I just say that? Did I just say we're planted

24:01Pastor Ken:church going back to 12 people and half of were my family. So it just, but you we just knew deep down inside in our hearts, it was what we were supposed to do. And this is where I came up. You don't need new instructions every day. You just need to be faithful with what God told you. OK, So be faithful with what God I told you family, remember you're listening today and maybe you feel you're in a rut and you feel like God is silent. You've prayed, you've waited, you've cried, you've wondered God, where are you? I want you to hear this today. Silence is not abandonment. It is not the God who is faithful. Yesterday hasn't changed today, and maybe you can't hear him right now. You got to trust his heart. You got to trust his heart.

25:02Pastor Ken:Maybe you can't see him working in your life right now, but you have to trust him anyways. And maybe you don't understand the, the, the, the, the delay of a miracle happening in your life, but you got to trust him anyway. Faith isn't saying I don't I, I I understand everything God is doing. That's not what faith is. Faith is saying I don't understand, but I know who God is. And sometimes I think the strongest prayers that you and I can pray isn't God explain this. It's God. Can I trust even you in this situation? Yes, you can God. I can trust you even in the hardest times and the situations in my life. God, I trust you. Amen. I want to pray for you. So close your eyes and let me pray with you right now.

26:00Pastor Ken:Come on, Father, every person listening right now to this podcast, they're feeling like the heavens are brass. They're they've gone quiet. And Lord, I pray that you would help us and to remind us that you are near. Lord, help us to trust the written word of God. Even though we can't see your hand, I pray God that we can trust your heart. God, give strength to those who are waiting who can't. They're at the end of the rope, so to speak. God, they're more discouraged than they are joyful. I pray God, that you would help us to walk by faith and not by our feelings. Help us to understand that you are the God in the waiting, and remind us that your silence never means that we have been abandoned by you. I thank you for that promise.

27:02Pastor Ken:Lord, We trust you even here in our most difficult times of life. We're trusting you in Jesus name, Amen. Amen. So I want to thank you for joining me today on Real Talk with PK. And if God feels silent right now, don't walk away. Don't walk away. Stay close, stay in his word, stay, stay praying, keep trusting, because God's silence does not mean God's absence. All right, next week we're going to be going directly into, I think, one of the biggest battles between faith and our feelings. And it's this fear, anxiety and faith. How does that work? Well, until next time, remember, when you can't hear his voice, you still have to trust his heart. We'll see you real soon.