REPOST Today’s AMI QT Devotional, originally posted on February 6, 2013, is prepared by Pastor Ryun Chang, who has served as AMI Teaching Pastor since 2011.
Devotional Thought for This Morning
“What Triggers the Hiddenness (i.e., Silence) of God?”
Psalm 13:1-3
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? 3 Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death.
Solitary confinement awaits prisoners who behave badly. Enclosed by darkness and silence, it is designed to break the human spirit. There may be no worse punishment on earth than being left alone in such a confined space, cut off from all human contact—as though the whole world has forgotten you.
What, then, does it mean when God hides His face, when it seems He has forgotten us? Does it mean our prayers fall on deaf ears, our situations go from bad to worse, and our hearts know no peace? Perhaps no one understood that feeling better than Moses, who spent 40 years in a kind of “spiritual solitary confinement” in the desert. During that time, he did not hear from God even once. As Moses put it, “I have become an alien in a foreign land” (Ex. 2:22). For Moses, who had once lived in the palace of Egypt, the desert—the place to which he fled after killing an Egyptian—became his solitary confinement.
So why did God hide Himself from Moses for such a long time? The LORD allowed this season to break the self-sufficiency of Moses, who at age 40 was very confident in his own abilities. As Scripture says, “Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not” (Acts 7:25). God was not willing to use him then. But after Moses had been humbled and learned his dependence on God, the LORD said to him, “Now go” (Ex. 4:12a).
So when you feel as if God is hiding His face from you, remember that He may be teaching you to depend on Him alone. Ask yourself this question: Do I truly depend on God?
Prayer: Dear God, how often I have depended on my own strength and resources to achieve success and solve my problems. Even though I repeatedly make a mess of things, I still struggle to learn my lesson. Father, forgive my self-sufficiency and teach me to trust and depend on You more and more. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Proverb 7
Lunch Break Study
Micah 3:4: “Then they will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done.”
Isaiah 59:2: “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
Ezekiel 33:11: “Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
Questions to Ponder
- What other factor can provoke the silence of God?
- As far as it depends on us, what’s the quickest way to end God’s silence (Ez. 33:11; Jer. 29:12-14)?
- In view of this, how can you characterize God in terms of His attributes (Jos. 24:19, 1 Jn. 1:5)?
Notes
- When we continue to sin, after having been advised and warned against it, we run the risk of provoking the silence of God, meaning He won’t respond to our pleas. Even if one finally repents, while God will certainly forgive, the penalty of sin will still be meted out against him. (See King Manasseh in 2 Chr. 33:12-13 and 2 Kings 24:3.)
- No other kings were more wicked than Manasseh and Ahab (1 Kin. 21:25-9) but when they repented, God immediately showered them with grace and mercy.
- Of course, we who have been so desensitized by sin can’t really grasp God’s holiness; thus, when God seemingly acts “angrily” toward sins, we want to say, “LORD, lighten up!” Inasmuch as light and darkness cannot coexist, God will neither coexist nor put up with sin. Of course, in His grace and mercy, God will give us ample time to turn away from it but not forever!
Evening Reflection
Let’s return to what we studied this afternoon.
If God were to be silent in your life, would that bother you, or would it fuel (being irked at God) your desire to live for yourself? How is your relationship with God right now? Is it time for an honest evaluation so that you can get right with Him? As you review today, did you seek His presence in the decisions that you had to make? Did you seek out His face? It’s not too late!