CN | He Speaks in the Silence: Leaning In ... and Letting Go

"My own faith failed, not when I questioned God's power to heal me, but when I doubted His goodness at the deepest level because He chose not to heal me. I have been humbled, deepened, chastised, and charmed by His bringing me close to whisper sweet wisdom into my broken ears." + Diane Comer

To finish 2020's first set of City Notes, I'm sharing part of the story of Diane, a woman, wife, and young mother of three who prayed for God to heal her sudden deafness brought on in her 20s ... and He said, "No." Here are the links to the first two posts:

+ In the Silence: The Fear & the Fury & the Beautiful No

+ He Speaks in the Silence: Treasures in the Darkness

Through Diane's story, God has shared a bit more of things I hold onto too tightly and can demand of Him in my own self-defensive anger. If more of what you read from her own words resonates with you, I encourage you to pick up and read her story in He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen. The third and last post excerpt from her book in this City Notes series is below.

"Leaning In ... A Story of Letting Go" excerpts adapted from Diane Comer's He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen

To lose one's hearing is to lose control. ... And I have learned that one of the surest ways to hear God is to let go of control.

Either by design or because all illusion of control has been ripped away from my grasping hands (and ears), the One who calls Himself my shepherd steps close when I've lost my way. He is near. And His nearness is all I need, all that really helps when life is not what it should be.

I cannot control the world around me. ... Yet I dare not let my need for control hold me back from living my life fully, from pursuing relationships and adventure, from all the messy unsafeness that comes with being a woman who loves wholeheartedly. I don't want a life filled only with safe decisions. ...

I was learning to rely on God, but it seemed that most of my learning followed closer on the heels of failure. ... God didn't promise that losing my hearing wouldn't hurt. Rather, He assured me that He would be with me in the hurt.

He was with my family as well, letting them see His work in me. They watched my suffering, and one by one chose to identify themselves with the One who spoke into my silence. Maybe that is the greatest gift of all — four kids, grown now, all going after God with passion and purpose. Not because I was perfect, but because they saw that He is.

My children learned early on how much I needed time alone with God. Taking in His words of hope and love, correction and direction, is an essential ingredient of walking close to Him. They learned from me and from their dad that if they value God's Word enough to tuck it into their minds, chewing and relishing the truths they find there, He will "bring it it mind" by breathing its relevance into their daily lives. ...

One sleepless night among many I had had recently, as I was praying all my worried petitions (as if God needed to be reminded over and over again to watch over us), I heard Him tell me to stop. ... "Enough, Di. I don't want you to pray for protection anymore." ... I heard Him speak into my foolishness. Not a severe scolding; no shaming; it was more like a firm Father prying my trembling fingers from the control I felt I must maintain at all times. ... "Of course I'll watch over you. But you've got to trust Me. I came that might have life, and this worry-filled tension is sucking the life right out of you."

That night, I heard my heavenly Father tell me to stop pleading and start giving thanks to Him for all those nights of protection, for decades of security, for a life thus far free of the disasters I dreaded. So I did. And never again did I wake up in fear as before. That nightly ritual of giving thanks worked like a powerful sleeping pill, putting my soul to rest in the hands of the only One who can keep me safe.

A rebuke is a soft sweeping of His thoughts against mine, reminding me of what I already know. Over and over again in the Scriptures, God issues His short decree: Fear not. ... 

I often hear His rebuke through Scripture, from a story that could have been written with my name on it. Like when Abraham caved to Sarah's fussing that maybe God needed help fulfilling His promise of a much-wanted son for the two of them. Her plan to "solve the problem" by forcing her maid into a surrogate pregnancy sent them into a season of unrest that continues to this day. The descendants of that venture have been warring with Abraham's other offspring for centuries since. Paul wrote, "These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us ... If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall." Strong words. But even as I am pulled up short, remembering not to "do a Sarah," God leads me to another grace-filled passage where Sarah is celebrated for choosing to "do what is right without being frightened by any fear."

God uses these stories, true and raw and vividly recorded in the Scriptures, to warn me of the turmoil that lies ahead if I choose a faithless path. This One whose wisdom spans the centuries brings real stories into my life and shows me the way to rest. I read the stories and He speaks truth and wisdom and rightness, showing me "the right way to go." The way I should take lest I trip myself right into a miry, mucky pit from which I'd undoubtedly mess up my own story.

When I say God speaks in the silence, this is what I mean. He speaks, using words that guide us in life and fill our minds with rest. "Here's the paradox: If we don't listen, we never enter His rest." Yet if we don't enter His rest, we never listen." Sometimes we just can't hear through the hollering of our own relentless worry. And so we wonder if God has gone silent, if He's awake when we need Him most. ... He will not yank me into rest; instead, He invites me to sit beside Him in the quiet stillness of His lordship. Choose rest, Di. Is that just me talking to myself? Maybe. But I'm not nearly as nice to myself as He is. All too often, I lambast myself for being dense, for not doing better, for slipping into fretting. He doesn't do that. I can lay hold of the calm I so badly need by listening to the Spirit, who uses His Word to reprove and rebuke and remind and exhort me. In order to enter that rest, I must choose. ... He wants each of us to know that He means it when He says, "Come to Me with your hears wide open. Listen, and you will find life."

I am here and I want you to listen to Me. I am giving you a gift. I am going to teach you to hear. But first you are going to have to learn to listen.

Next post: CN | Dusty Ones: Wild Wanderings in the Desert Spaces

Here are links to previous City Notes books: A Meal with Jesus; The Art of Neighboring; A Praying Life; The Rest of God; Everyday Church; Letters to a Birmingham Jail; Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith; The Pursuing God; Yawning at Tigers; Moving Towards Emmaus; Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal; Faith Without Illusions; The Eternal Current; Learning to Speak God; Tattoos on the Heart; Drop the Stones; Hermanas; The Ultimate Exodus

Soli Jesu gloria.

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

CN | He Speaks in the Silence: Treasures in the Darkness

"To be blessed actually means to be fully satisfied. To thrive on the inside even if life is falling apart on the outside. To be so filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit within that we are able to endure and taste the sweetness of His love even in the midst of bitter reality. Even when it hurts, even when we do not understand." + Diane Comer

To continue 2020's first set of City Notes, I'm sharing part of the story of Diane, a woman, wife, and young mother of three who prayed for God to heal her sudden deafness brought on in her 20s ... and He said, "No." Here is the link to the first post:

+ In the Silence: The Fear & the Fury & the Beautiful No

Through Diane's story, God has shared a bit more of things I hold onto too tightly and can demand of Him in my own self-defensive anger. If more of what you read from her own words resonates with you, I encourage you to pick up and read her story in He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen.

"Where the Rubber Meets the Road ... Treasures in the Darkness" excerpt adapted from Diane Comer's He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen

I had been angry inside for so long, feeling intensely sorry for myself, that it had become deeply ingrained in my daily thoughts. Anger at God, anger at my circumstances, anger that God hadn't given me the perfect life I had thought I'd signed up for all those years ago.

When life goes bad and we stay mad, something terrible happens inside our souls. We lose our ability to hear, and suddenly God seems far away and silent. ...

This is why I cannot help but question the view I've heard bandied about with such impunity: "It's okay to be angry with God." Really? Are we sure? I'm not so certain. In fact, I think I was in a dangerous place when my heart was raging against Him, my soul teetering precariously close to the edge of that deadly cliff of rebellion. Crazy things happen when we willfully push away from the love of God, things that leave wounds and scars that can last a lifetime — mistakes, misjudgments, misery. Much like a child who inadvertently injures himself in a fit of momentary temper, I was working myself into a fury that could have caused irreparable harm.

That God can handle my anger, I have no doubt. ... But our souls are not strong enough to withstand the gale-force winds of intense and sustained anger. The roof is blown off, boundaries are broken, we are exposed to our own shocking ugliness. When that still, small voice of reason questions the rightness of our anger, we raise the volume, and sometimes we can't stop. 

The spark that fueled my anger was intense self-absorption, which led to self-pity. And self-pity, I have learned, is a sin that keeps me away from God. Until then, my regular forays into self-pity seemed rather benign, a means of passively protesting what I couldn't control. But I was learning, through daily doses of listening with the Word of God open on my lap, a whole new way of thinking. I was awakening to the idea that God had not so much saved me to make me better as to make me His. And not only that, but my me-centered faith had left me stuck with a whole lot of me, and not much of Jesus ... 

Self-pity is subtle and circuitous. Self-pity slips into relationships, strangling goodwill and preventing grace. More of the conflicts between my husband and me are started by "hurt feelings" (aka self-pity) than any other instigator. I feel bad for myself, and I think he should feel bad for me too. And then I think he ought to fall all over himself, making it up to poor little me. If I pout for a while, it's his just due. When I decide to indulge him by cheering up, I expect him to be ever so grateful for my renewed favor.

I believe that most of the self-prefixed words cause me to slide into sin: self-defensiveness, self-centeredness, selfishness, self-protectiveness, self-promotion. Any time I make my self the object of my (and everyone else's) primary concern, I am setting myself against God. ...

But God was inviting me into a deeper place, a chamber only accessible through the hard-to-open door of guileless transparency. Not because I was good or pure or as a reward for doing right. I was broken and ugly and utterly helpless. On that morning that God told me it was okay and He wouldn't heal my deafness, He actually rescued me from my own worst enemy: me. In that moment of spectacular grace, God rescued me from the mess I'd made for myself. I wasn't a good girl. But in His mercy, He lit up my darkness. He saved me from myself. ...

The word translated as blessing in the New Testament is derived from the Greek word, makarismos, which means "to be indwelt by God through the Holy Spirit and, therefore, because of His indwelling to be fully satisfied in spite of the afflictions of life."

To be blessed actually means to be fully satisfied. To thrive on the inside even if life is falling apart on the outside. To be so filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit within that we are able to endure and taste the sweetness of His love even in the midst of bitter reality. Even when it hurts, even when we do not understand.

According to Scripture, this kind of blessing is unknown apart from God. No one can conjure it up or fake it for long. It is something God gives whenever we choose to fully entrust ourselves to Him. James wrote, "Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy" (James 5:10-11, NIV, emphasis mine).

God's definition of blessing is far broader and wiser and, to tell the truth, harder to swallow than the one I'd made up. It almost always includes suffering and the opportunity to choose God's way over my own self-protective tendencies to grasp for control. James assumed that everyone remembered the prophets' lives as blessed, despite the fact that their histories record agonizing suffering. Elizabeth called Mary blessed among women because she carried the Son of God in her womb, despite the fact that she would face certain rejection from those around her, not to mention the death of her child. Mary considered herself blessed, even knowing that heartache would dog her footsteps.

Another person God "blessed" was Jacob. And truth be told, I've never much liked Jacob. He was the bad boy, manipulative and pushy, a liar and deceiver. But his repulsive reaction to his wife, Leah, on the first morning of their honeymoon struck me as the ultimate meanness. I fairly felt her cringe, forever damaged by his rejection (see Genesis 29:17-30). How could he? Yet over and over, God purposely identified Himself with this man: "I am the God of ... Jacob." The God of Jacob? Really? What was it about Jacob that prompted God to promote him over and over again? To identify Himself with someone who seems like the epitome of perverseness? God comes across as doggedly emphatic when He commands, "Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another," yet He stakes His name proudly to one whose very name means deceiver. In spite of all Jacob's obvious failures and devious ways, God does not condemn him. What can that mean? ... 

What a mess! Later, when Jacob deceives and deserts his father-in-law, Laban, God intervenes by warning Laban in a dream to leave Jacob alone. After a heated argument, the two men come to an uneasy truce and Jacob moves on to face what he's terrified will be a mortal confrontation with Esau. But on his way, Jacob instead meets the only One he cannot deceive. Jacob comes face-to-face with God.

For hours, Jacob wrestles in the dark with an unidentifiable opponent. All he knows is that he is being attacked and can't win. By dawn, he is wearing out, near the end of his strength, with a growing certainty that his opponent is no mere man, but God Himself. But instead of giving up and letting go, Jacob grabs hold of Him with his last remaining strength, striving to get what he wants: a blessing. ... He holds on to God in an adrenaline rush of determination. He is desperate, single-minded, intentional.

Griffith Thomas opened my eyes to the truths imbedded in Jacob's story. "How like he is to many of us today! We do not realize that all these untoward circumstances, these perplexities, these sorrows, are part of the Divine discipline, and intended to bring us to the end of ourselves. And so we struggle, and strive, and fight, and resist, and all to no purpose. God has been trying to get Jacob (and us) to trust Him all these years."

Has God been doing the same with me (and you)? ... How much easier it is to be a rule keeper, to parrot the principles and memorize the verses without ever having to bleed sorrow over my own raw heartache and subtle sins. That, notes Mark Buchanan, "requires little or no personal engagement ... you must follow orders ... it need draw nothing from your heart, your mind, your strength, your soul. It's like paint-by-numbers: it requires no artistry, no imagination, no discipline, just dumb, methodical obedience." 

What I see now in Jacob is his daring courage to go after God. I read Jacob's story with edge-of-the-seat anticipation of his wrestling with God until he prevails and receives a blessing. For the rest of his life after his encounter with "the man," Jacob walked with a limp — a handicap, a less-than. Something most probably painful and most certainly limiting. Jacob was done in and undone. Strengthened and weakened. Satisfied and made thirsty. Something happened there by the river in wrestling with God that forever marked him, bringing him to a place of surrender and redirecting all the pent-up passion that had tripped him up so many times before. Ultimately, Jacob joined the "poor in spirit" of Jesus' acclaimed teaching from the mountain above Jerusalem — the sermon that "amazed" the crowds for its controversial content: "God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs."

This was becoming my story. All my fakery fled when I came face-to-face with the severe mercy of God. He loved me in all my brokenness. Not the me I pretended to be, not the me I wanted to be, but the me that I am right now in this moment. Though the rest of his life after God gave him a limp did not treat him kindly, in the end Jacob became a listener. And that is what I aspire to: to walk close enough to God to hear Him ... Even if it means limping my way through all the sounds I cannot hear. My own suffering and failure marked the path straight into that place I craved. When the formulas that had always worked for me failed to answer my questions or satiate my thirst, I found myself finally ready to drink deeply of the living water — that thirst quenching, soul satisfying spiritual sustenance which all my rules could never give me: To hear His voice and enter into His blessing.  

I am here and I want you to listen to Me. I am giving you a gift. I am going to teach you to hear. But first you are going to have to learn to listen.

Next post: CN | In the Silence: Leaning In ... and Letting Go

Here are links to previous City Notes books: A Meal with Jesus; The Art of Neighboring; A Praying Life; The Rest of God; Everyday Church; Letters to a Birmingham Jail; Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith; The Pursuing God; Yawning at Tigers; Moving Towards Emmaus; Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal; Faith Without Illusions; The Eternal Current; Learning to Speak God; Tattoos on the Heart; Drop the Stones; Hermanas; The Ultimate Exodus

Soli Jesu gloria.

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

CN | In the Silence: The Fear & the Fury & the Beautiful No

"He had failed me. Failed to love me enough. Failed to take care of me. Failed to keep those time-worn promises of the good, blessing-filled wonderful life He owed me. ... He didn't care and neither would I." + Diane Comer

To begin these City Notes (CN), I couldn't think of a better story than the woman, wife, and young mother of three who prayed for God to heal her sudden deafness brought on in her 20s ... and He said, "No."

Seems a bit stark, doesn't it? But God has said, "No," to me a lot these past few years. Perhaps He has done the same to you to requests we think would be really good for Him to say, "Yes" to instead. And if you're like me, you're continuing to learn how to trust Him with these answers because we've heard He is the only One who is completely good, beautiful, and true, so somehow He must know something we don't. And I'm also learning there is much I don't know anyways.

Through Diane's story, God has shared a bit more of such things I don't know, and so I'm grateful to be able to now share some of her story with you. If what you read from her own words resonates with you, I encourage you to pick up and read more of her story in He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen.

"The Fear and the Fury ... and The Beautiful No" excerpt adapted from Diane Comer's He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen

As C.S. Lewis watched his wife die, he wrote these words:

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away (A Grief Observed).

Like Lewis, I felt as though a door had slammed in my face with the sound of bolting and double bolting on God's side. I was not alone in my sense that God was silent to my tantrums. 

1) Job heard the same nothingness: "I must express my anguish. My bitter soul must complain ... I hate my life ... I am disgusted with my life. Let me complain freely. My bitter soul must complain. I will say to God ... why do You reject me ... ?" (Job 7:11, 16; 10:1-3, NLT)  

2) Naomi heard the same nothingness: "Don't call me Naomi," she responded. "Instead, call me Mara, (bitter) for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the LORD has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me?" (Ruth 1:20-21, NLT)  

3) David heard the same nothingness: "Do not abandon me, O LORD. Do not stand at a distance, my God. Come quickly to help me, O LORD my Savior." "Do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if You are silent, I might as well give up and die." (Psalm 38:21-22, NLT) 

As I read the Bible, every sentence seemed to confirm my suspicions — that God was not nice. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, I encountered Jesus as an outspoken confronter of hypocrisy. But instead of seeing the truth in what He was saying, all I noticed was His not-niceness. He seemed harsh, even mean. People asked Him questions and He responded by pinning them to the wall. That bothered me. He bothered me, grating on my polite sensibilities of the right way to conduct relationships. He rescued some and not others. Spoke kindly to a few and blasted many. Healed randomly without much more than a caveat to keep quiet about it. It didn't take long for me conclude that God was not, and never had been, good.

In one grand display of incensed wrath, I lifted my Bible off my lap and threw it across the deck. The big, black, leather-bound book bounced at least once, then landed helter-skelter, ripped pages flapping in the wind. I was so mad, filled with the need to hurt Him for not helping me. I sat there for a long time, looking at my abused Bible, my heart pounding, breaking, slipping away from all I thought I'd believed. What would He do to me now? Despair crept in, taking up residence where faith had once ruled. In that moment, I realized that I hated Him. I loathed the One I read about in the Gospel stories He Himself had sanctioned.

He had failed me.

Failed to love me enough. Failed to take care of me. Failed to keep those time-worn promises of the good, blessing-filled, wonderful life He owed me. This Jesus was not worthy of my love. I would sacrifice and struggle no more. Not for Him.

He didn't care and neither would I. ...

Already naturally introverted, I now became a recluse. The thought of being with people who might see the churning mess inside me was terrifying. I was afraid they would see the truth, that I was an angry, rebellious, blasphemous sinner. I wrapped myself in a cloak of self-pity and shut everyone out. ...

Until my husband and the elders came together to anoint me and pray for me. The ancient custom is referred to in James (i.e. 5:13-16, NLT), the beauty of the symbolism between oil and the Spirit, of healing of the body and hope for the soul. Each of these spiritual leaders had been here before, reliant on God to do what they could not, watching and waiting with a hurting one. ... 

With these friends who cared so deeply pouring out their heart-felt petitions for my healing, I couldn't hold back my tears. I didn't politely cry — I sobbed. For me, for my future, for my fears and failures and the foulness that was threatening to undo me. I wept as I had never wept before, soaking my blouse with my tears, pleading with God to hear these men, to do for them what He hadn't done for me. With one last desperate effort, my soul begged God to hear me, to heal me.

Oh, God, help me!

When I couldn't help myself, when I couldn't be strong or good or right, when I couldn't find a foolproof set of rules to follow, a plea of naked dependence was all I could manage.

And in that moment, something shifted. 

Not in me; I sat in a pathetic heap, huddled over myself, knees drawn in, face in my lap. But I sensed the darkness dissipating, as if clouds were being rolled back. Like on a stormy day when suddenly streams of light break through black clouds. Now light peeked through, gaining brilliance until it streamed over me — a light so radiant it caused that dingy room and those fervent men to fade away. ...

I was terrified. At the same time, I was filled with the strangest sense of safety. Afraid, yet not threatened. The essence of His presence surrounded me with such unearthly power that it frightened me out of all my fears. ...

That voice. I knew who it was, and I heard what He was saying. Just two words. Two words and my name.

It's okay! It's okay, Diane, it's okay ... 

I knew without the slightest tinge of doubt what He was telling me: He would not heal my hearing. He would not intervene and do what I wanted. He would not give me what I'd begged for. He would not say yet to our our prayers. His answer was no. 

And in that no, a strange flood of hope filled me. Somehow, in some way I could not begin to understand, He made it okay. How could the word I dreaded most sound so loving and gentle? How was it that all my horror of deafness was swallowed up in that irrevocable NO? ... 

The next morning, the words from the ascribed Psalm for the day shook my fully awake: 

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what He has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord. Oh, the joys of those who trust the Lord, who have no confidence in the proud or in those who worship idols. O Lord my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them. You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings. Now that You have made me listen, I finally understand ... (Psalm 40:1-6, NLT)

I am here and I want you to listen to Me. I am giving you a gift. I am going to teach you to hear. But first you are going to have to learn to listen.

Next post: CN | He Speaks in the Silence: Treasures in the Darkness

Here are links to previous City Notes books: A Meal with Jesus; The Art of Neighboring; A Praying Life; The Rest of God; Everyday Church; Letters to a Birmingham Jail; Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith; The Pursuing God; Yawning at Tigers; Moving Towards Emmaus; Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal; Faith Without Illusions; The Eternal Current; Learning to Speak God; Tattoos on the Heart; Drop the Stones; Hermanas; The Ultimate Exodus

Soli Jesu gloria.

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us