It’s Silent Saturday, that day of Holy Week when we hang between the death and the resurrection of Jesus.
As I sat down to put fingers to laptop keys and pray about what direction God would have His people led– through a simple blog post–I’m brought right back to the characteristic of God that spills my cheeks with tears every single time I meditate on it: HE IS FAITHFUL.
I don’t know what life may look like for you on the inside. But what I do know is that so many of you are hurting, struggling, begging God to hear you, waiting (sometimes for years!) for answers, healing, help. In a round-a-bout literary way, I could take the 24 hours of Silent Saturday and compare them to the season you might be walking through, but 24 hours might seem so small when you’re broken.
Here is what I implore you to remember. 400 years of silence from God occurred as the Old Testament closed its chapters until the angel Gabriel appeared to a Jewish girl in Nazareth and John the Baptist began declaring the coming King; and yet God was always near, always drawing His people, always weaving and working together the good He has planned for us.
During the silence, though we may not feel God, these are the moments that we rely on what we know of Him! We know He is good, always good, loving, true, strong in power, merciful, righteous, just, holy, and faithful. Because He is faithful and He always keeps His word, we have promises to stand on. We know that if we seek Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). We can choose not to be led by our feelings, lies of loneliness or abandonment, knowing that these are not true of our God. Don’t fall into the trap of apathy. Keep seeking God!
The Jews weren’t alone during the 400 years of silence. They had the opportunity to seek God, study Scripture, and to prepare for the coming Messiah, but they chose not to use this time wisely, succumbed to cultural trends, and were blinded and deafened as a nation to the point where they could not even consider the concept of a humble servant king, Jesus, even though their Scriptures had foretold it. The Messiah was right there in front of them, but their apathy fed their unbelief.
Use the silence wisely, friend. Don’t lean on your emotions, but stand firm on the truth of who God is. He is faithful, and He is here even if you don’t feel Him. Your Sunday is coming!