Obeying God When He is Silent

The other night I asked myself the question: “What am I supposed to do when I God isn't showing me the direction he wants me to take in life?” So, I did what any confused Christian does—I picked up my Bible and started reading. I flipped through the Old Testament and realized I wanted to see what Paul had to say, so I turned the pages to Ephesians and worked my way through all six chapters looking for answers. Fortunately, I found a few.

Sometimes I struggle with what I'm supposed to do at any given moment of my life. It seems that I always have a question for God like “what do I do next?” or “how should I handle this situation?” It reminds me of elementary school when I could shamelessly ask the teacher how to do a homework problem that she had already explained how to do. God is like that to us; He finds joy in guiding us, and we find joy (or at least we should) in following Him. It's a good thing to ask God for guidance. It shows that we are humbly submitting to God's will above our own. But what about those times when we really need answers, when life just seems to be going on the fritz, and God doesn't answer us? Are we not listening hard enough? Should we ask again? Does He even care?

He does care. And it's perhaps out of His affection for us that He remains quiet. Sometimes God wants us to handle things on our own. Now, before you disagree, let me explain. Don't assume that I mean we should take things into our own hands all the time. Certainly, there are occasions when we should be on our knees asking God for guidance. But this isn't the case for every action we take. Should we really ask God when we should take a shower, eat dinner, go exercise, run errands? It's not so much that these questions don't have good answers. Instead, it's often our responsibility to live a Godly life based on what God has already told us.

Realistically, if we always ask God what His will is for the most trivial of tasks, it only shows our own spiritual immaturity. Think about it: if God has a specific plan for how we should spend every minute of our day, it means failing to follow that plan to the T is disobeying God, and disobeying God is sinful. Are we sinning if we eat a sandwich instead of an apple without asking God if He wants us to eat the apple after all? I'm thinking no. Now, this doesn't mean we won't disobey God by doing what we want. If we aren't being good stewards with our time, money, etc. then surely we aren't doing what God probably wants us to do. So how do we go about obeying God when we approach the insignificant tasks of our day? And how do we follow God when we need His help, and yet He does not speak?

The answer is that God has given us a guide already. You may have heard of it. It's called The Bible. If we are diligent in reading The Bible, God will give us wisdom for the practical life as well as the spiritual life. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says “Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work” (NET). So whenever we read The Bible, God has made us capable of making our own decisions based on the wisdom he has graciously given to us.

This is where Ephesians came in handy for me. Paul has laid out some very practical and very important steps for a maturing Christian to learn. Paul says that “we are no longer to be children . . . but practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ” (4:14-15). The word I find very key here is “practicing.” We aren't supposed to merely think about what God wants us to do, nor are we to constantly ask for guidance in all things. We are supposed to put the things God has already taught us into practice. Thinking is good; doing is better. A child learns not to touch a stove when he gets burnt by it. We learn to live like Christ by seeing the disastrous consequences of our sin. As an example, Ephesians 4:31 says, “You must put away every kind of bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and evil, slanderous talk.” We find that when we obey these commands we are in a better position to make the right choices in our relationships. We need not ask God unless we are truly unsure about a decision because He has spoken to us already.

Paul leaves us with this reminder: “Therefore be very careful how you live – not as unwise but as wise, taking advantage of every opportunity, because the days are evil. For this reason do not be foolish, but be wise by understanding what the Lord's will is” (5:15-17). We understand God's will by obeying Him, using The Bible to learn His commands and to gain wisdom, and praying when we deal with issues that we don't yet know how to handle. If we ask God to direct every single action of ours then we are often wasting our time—time that should be spent learning what he has given us in His book. Through this and practicing what we have learned, we can become more like Christ to the point where we go about our day wisely, not because we ask for His guidance in everything but because we have put His commands in our heart and His wisdom in our mind.

So is God truly silent? No. He has already spoken to us, we just need to listen and learn. And during those times when He does speak to us directly, we should praise Him for His faithfulness and thank Him for His grace.

A Christian Ideal for Love

I've been dwelling on this for days, and I think the best way to understand what I believe is to write it down. So here we go.

Let me clarify: this post is about romantic love (between a man and woman), not the agape love God shows us. I could write for years about God's love and still not come close to describing its perfection. I'm just hoping to keep it to a few paragraphs here.

So I'm going to start with the main idea here: Jesus showed us how to love, so love cannot exist apart from Him. Now, I'm not saying nonbelievers can't love, as its obvious in many cases that they can. However, their love ultimately comes from God, even if they don't know it. Some Christians seem to miss this point a lot though. How else do you explain the divorce rate among them? I've heard all the arguments: “we didn't have any chemistry,” “she just wasn't the one,” “he doesn't understand me.” Bull crap. Maturity is the issue here. Everyone goes through rough spots in their relationships, but if you cut and run instead of working it out, you're the one responsible. The difference between a relationship that lasts and one that doesn't is maturity.

Now let me go deeper into this whole maturity thing. When I say maturity, I'm not talking about age, experience, or any other standard often used to determine maturity. What I mean by maturity is the quality in a person that reflects the character of God and runs to the area of conflict, not away. Jesus does mention in Matthew 5:32 that divorce is okay in cases of infidelity. I would even argue that holds for marriages which are continuously abusive. Any other reason is probably not going to cut it. God says in Malachi 2:16 that He hates divorce, and understandably so. God has suffered through the greatest divorce of all time: the divorce of His creation from Him. That is essentially what Genesis 3 is all about. Even so, God understands when unfaithfulness separates a couple, keeping them trusting each other again. But God pursued us despite our sin, despite our adultery against Him. He gave His life to be with us again. That's why the Church is called the “bride” of Christ. It's because of this reason that I have tremendous respect for couples who are willing to stick together even when adultery happens. I'm not condoning affairs (they're despicable), but if a relationship can weather that storm, it's practically invincible.

What about relationships before marriage? Perhaps there are fewer Biblical verses and other metaphors to apply here, but we can still learn a lot from Christ. The key difference between dating and marriage is the fact that it's okay to break up. There are no vows made before God to stay committed, so breaking up, though it may be painful, is not a sin. However, I still believe a lot of things hold true in a relationship. For one, it's vital to keep God in focus and at the center of the relationship. I imagine it, since I'm a visual person, as a triangle. The man and woman are the two corners at the bottom, and God is the point at the top. The man and woman each have their own personal relationship with God, one which nothing can take away. But they also have a relationship with one another. Without God, though, the relationship is one-dimensional and has nothing to hold it together during the hard times. This happens often with couples who don't have a solid relationship with God, to the point where they become each others' idols. With God though, there is a a constant; an unchanging, immovable constant. He is the foundation which holds the universe together. With faith from both sides, He can hold any relationship together.

That said, there are numerous reasons why breaking up is alright. While, ideally, every relationship could eventually turn into marriage, sometimes people just move in two different directions. In that case it could be that God is calling each person to a separate place, with a separate plan for each. Please, please though, carefully ask God if that is indeed his plan. Sometimes we hear Him wrong, and there's no reason to break up unless you are confident you heard Him right. And whatever you do, do not use that as an excuse to break up. That's just dumb. In the end, the goal of every relationship should be learning to love and serve one another.

So what is love? (Baby don't hurt me). I don't believe love is technically an emotion. We often pervert the true meaning of the word by using it as such. But let's be honest, we love our families and our friends, but do we really always like them? Who among all the people that you love has never gotten on your nerves at least once (and most likely many, many times)? Therefore, love is something else. I believe that something else is a commitment. Feelings come and go, but if there is a commitment behind the relationship, feelings don't matter as much. Jesus commands us to love our enemies even though we don't, and may never, like them. That is why Jesus is the key to understanding love. There are people who go in and out of relationships wondering why they always fail. The answer is all around them, and that answer loves them dearly. But even those who are happily married, I'm sure, learn something new about love everyday. That's just part of learning to live like Christ. You may not have ever experienced a relationship before, but as long as you love and pursue Jesus as He loves and pursues us, you can know what love is.

So what do you all think?