Have you ever felt a stream of silence, as if God had stopped talking to you? 

Perhaps you felt as if you were no longer in his presence, and you longed for the moment when you would once again feel the nudgings in your heart and soul from the Holy Spirit. These can be empty-feeling days! 

It has happened to me, but always, and I’ll repeat the word for emphasis, ALWAYS, it rests on me. God never abandons me/us as his child. No…the feeling of separation typically rests on two-fold circumstance from something that I had done (or better yet) something that I had not done. 

When I feel I am not hearing God’s voice, my first step is to continue talking through prayer. Then, I take a look at my own self. Have I done something that displeased God? Is he trying to tell me something? Do I have unrepented sin in my life that formed into an expanse between me and God? 

When was the last time I opened the bible and studied God’s word? Bingo. This is typically the be-all-and-end-all to my “mystery of silence.” He desires to talk to each of us through his word! 

In this blog, I talk about how we hear God’s voice. Sometimes, when we feel we don’t hear him (after all, we’re only human), we are looking in the wrong place. Sometimes, we need to remember how he talks to us, and we need to listen and respond to the silence…he is there, we just aren’t where we need to be. It isn’t difficult. What relationship flourishes without attention and effort? A good marriage, for example, is wrapped around communication—partner first, us second in the sense that we respect, love, and listen (the top tool to communication is listening).

The last time I experienced a “dry spell, ” I realized that I had not been imbibing in God’s healing water (his word). How could I possibly absorb when I was not drinking what was given to me? Psalm 42:1-3 (NIV) came to my attention (from somewhere…always a place I least expect him to show up, yet, with God, nothing is a surprise).

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, My God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 

So there I was, with a soul panting for our God, as a deer pants for a stream of water. I was thirsting for the living God. My question was, where could I go and meet with him? My tears were my questions—questions that fed me day and night, rather than his voice and word. “Where is my God?” He is in his word. He is everywhere. As if a key were turned in a locked door, so I heard him in my heart, “I had gone nowhere. Where were you? Now listen, you must not do that again, daughter.” Thank you, Father. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Thank you, Jesus. I praise you. 

Taking a look at the last verse (11) in Psalm 42 (it can move mountains, even with the tiniest speck of faith). It did for me. 

Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will praise him, my Savior and my God.

Why was my soul so downcast? Why was I so disturbed? Where was my hope? Instead, open up I say to self, say praise for my Savior and my God. His voice is there. I just need to listen. Isn’t that beautiful? I think so. I know so.

Have you experienced a dry spell when you thought God was no longer with you, or when you thought you are no longer hearing him talk to you? What did you do to remedy your thirst (to fire communication back up again)? How do you hear him talk to you?