Why Can't I Hear From God?

Elijah was a man who spoke for God. This is him worn all the way down, alone in a cave.

Plenty of us know that feeling.

The only difference is he was sitting in silence, and most of us haven't had five quiet minutes in months.

Music while we get ready, a podcast on the way to work. The second the house goes quiet at night, we turn something on.

Then we wonder why God doesn't say anything.

He didn't go quiet on you. You just haven't been quiet.

Right before this, Elijah had the biggest day of his life.

He stood in front of the whole country against four hundred and fifty men who served a false god named Baal, and God answered him with fire out of the sky.

Then Jezebel the queen, who fed those men at her own table, swore he'd be dead by morning, and he ran.

He went out into the wilderness, sat down under a tree, and asked God to take his life.

Watch what God does with a man in that condition.

He let him sleep, and sent an angel to wake him twice with food.

Not one word about what came next until after all that.

Forty days later God had him stand outside a cave on a mountain.

Wind hard enough to break rocks apart, then an earthquake, then fire.

The verse stops after each one to say the same thing. The LORD was not in it.

Then look at what's left after all that noise: a still small voice.

God could have used any of it, and He picked the quietest thing in the chapter.

God whispers because He's close enough to.

At some point God changed how He speaks. Watch how Hebrews opens:

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son."

Hebrews 1:1-2 (KJV)

For a long stretch God spoke in pieces. A prophet here, a dream over there.

Then He said it all in one Person, and that Person is Jesus.

Look at how God did the biggest thing He's ever done. Not with wind, not with fire.

He sent His Son as a baby nobody was waiting for, and the loudest moment of it was Jesus dying with three words in His mouth: it is finished.

That was God settling everything wrong with you without ever raising His voice, and He has never had to say it twice.

He's not going to shout over noise you can turn off.

Getting quiet isn't a trick that makes God perform.

You can shut everything off and sit there ten minutes without hearing a thing you'd write down, and He still hasn't gone anywhere.
Just because you don't physically "hear" God, doesn't mean He isn't present.

The quiet is where we find out He's been talking the whole time.

Here's how to start getting quiet enough to hear Him today:

1. Give God the first few minutes tomorrow, before anything else is on.

Wake up and leave your phone where it is. Tell Him what's on your mind, and then sit there a minute with nothing playing.

A minute in, you're going to want to grab that phone. Everybody does, and it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Say one true sentence out loud instead, even if it's just that this feels uncomfortable, then give it one more minute.

You can do that on your worst morning.

2. Go to His word

A lot of the times we want to hear a new revelation. Why not try going to what He already said instead of trying to hear something fresh?

3. Pick the one thing you turn on out of habit and leave it off this week.

You already know which one.

It's the show that goes on the second the house gets quiet, or the podcast that starts before you're out the door.

Leave it off and let the quiet sit there a while.

PRAYER

Gracious Father, I've been telling myself You went quiet on me.

I haven't been quiet in months and I know it.

Thank You that You said everything about me in three words, and settled it for good.

Thank You that You fed a worn-out man and let him sleep before You ever gave him a job.

Today I'm turning the noise off and sitting here with You.

Meet me in the quiet, even when the quiet gets uncomfortable.

Teach me to hear You at the volume You actually use.

I trust You with the mornings I sit down and don't hear a thing.

In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen.