Speaking in the Light – Is it Time to Shut Up and Look Up?

One can see things up close and personal from ground level down in the valley, but things begin to look really tiny to us from up on top of the mountain’s peak.
God will allow into our lives whatever it takes to make us grow up so that we may become fully mature believers. In a very practical way, it is much easier to worship while we are camped out on the heights, but more often than not, we are made genuine while we operate in the valley below.
The question of the day is not how well you do when you hear God loud and clear speaking to you. Rather, it is how well do you do when God appears to be silent? What happens to your spirit when the only words that you do hear would actually be better off left unsaid as they are nothing more than a collection of bad counsel and verbal bombs?
It is very tough to not lose your temper amidst it all. In times of pressure- poise is so important. It is the ability to keep a positive composure and a healthy disposition and an optimistic mood- but that is easier said than done when you feel like you are having a one-way conversation with the heavens.
Where is God when we struggle? The late Christian recording artist Rich Mullins asked that question of the Lord many times. While his music was ministering to thousands, Rich would be privately crying out to God and he often felt that God responded to his pleas with nothing but an uncomfortable silence. Then one day an incident occurred that gave Rich insight into how God works in the midst of tough times. Rich describes it this way:
“I was living with Jim and Meghan Smith when I lived in Wichita and they have a little boy named Jacob. I was sitting on the couch one day and Jacob did his thing that I loved to see, he won’t do anymore because he’s too old, he used to throw these tantrums when he was two-years-old.
He would sit on the ground and he would bang his head on the floor, throwing his arms up and down, wailing and crying all the while. He was so dramatic and I loved it. And I would always have to go out on the porch because I would laugh and that would blow the whole thing.
Well, one day he threw himself on the floor and was beating his head, but Meghan just stepped over him and walked into the kitchen. Man, it killed me. I didn’t laugh this time. I had to leave because I began to cry. I realized that this was pathetic. Jacob is me.
I am always throwing myself on the floor and beating my head, going, ‘God, if you don’t give me what I want right now when I want it, I’m going to hurt your image in me. I’m going to destroy the closest thing I have to you, which is me.’ God is not going to answer my prayers when I come to Him in that threatening and demanding way.
I can beat my head against the walls until it bleeds. He can’t honor my bad behavior because He is a good Father. His love for me must discipline me by saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to just be quiet here. I am going to go into the kitchen and make a pound cake!”
And do you know what I have realized over the years, Family? Why is it that when God chooses to remain silent about a subject, do we human beings have a tendency to not know when to keep our mouths shut? We ramble on and on into places that we should not let our tongues go. Not all advice is good advice. What’s the worst bit of counsel some well-meaning individual ever passed along to you?
When you were younger, someone may have told you, “You are so bright and talented, why would you even bother going to college? There are plenty of millionaires today who never even finished high school.” Or perhaps you had a friend who advised you, “Oh go ahead and get married. You can change them later.”
Or maybe when you were thinking about investing a few years back, your broker told you, “I have a good feeling about this. I think that it will be a sure thing to invest $10,000 in this venture.” Not a good plan by any means Stan.
We human beings can be very ignorant when we try to proceed without a clear and confident bit of divine revelation. And when we are in doubt about heaven, it is best to don’t here on earth. It is wiser to wait on God’s answer on His terms and in His time than to try to muddle through the maze on our own.
I think that it is a dangerous thing to try to give strong advice to somebody else when we are not even sure of what we are doing in our own backyard. And what a mistake to attempt to explain the ways of God, especially when we don’t yet understand God’s way ourselves?
When we start to assume, we tend to make an “ass of u and me!” Don’t share an “If I were you” story, if you have never yet walked a mile in the shoes on the road of where that somebody who is in deep trouble trods.
So my word of wisdom for all of us today is to wait on the Lord, even when we don’t like the weight of the wait. He has a much broader view and bigger picture perspective and we must not try to force our quick fix into His eternal masterpiece.
And before you might be hasty in helping somebody else in the middle of their trial or tribulation, think and pray and weigh your words in the light of who God really is, not who you think He is. God never uses shame. He disciplines those He loves to lead us to repentance- not destruction.
Shame only pushes others deeper into the spiral of their pain. John Eldredge in his book, “Waking The Dead” gives us a good rule of thumb on how to properly discern whether the words you have received are godly or garbage. “If it doesn’t bring freedom and it doesn’t bring life, it is not Christianity. If it doesn’t restore the image of God and rejoice in the heart it is not Christianity!”
Bad counsel actually adds additional burdens to an already heavy load. Whatever happened to, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother?” Trying to explain the unexplainable only confuses. And if we had all the answers and knew every aspect of God’s plans for our lives, we wouldn’t need faith now would we?