The Hidden Life: Chapter 7
By J.R. Miller
There are times when God seems to be silent to us. To our earnest supplications, he answers not a word. We are told to ask and we shall receive--to seek, and we shall find--to knock, and it shall be opened unto us. Yet there come times when we ask imploringly, and seem not to receive; when, though we seek with intense eagerness, we seem not to find; when we knock until our hands are bruised and bleeding, and there seems to be no opening of the door. Sometimes the heavens appear to be brass above us, as we ask, "Is there anywhere an ear to hear our pleadings? Is there anywhere a heart to feel sympathy with us in our need?"
Nothing is so awful as this silence of God--to feel that communication with him is cut off. It is a pathetic prayer in which a psalm writer pleads: "Be not silent to me, lest I become like those who go down into the pit." Anything from God is better than that he be silent to us. It would be a sad, dreary, lonely world if the atheist's creed were true--that there is no God; that there is no ear to hear our prayer; that no voice of answering help or love or comfort, ever comes out of heaven for us.
Are prayers ever unanswered? There are many prayers which are answered, although we do not know it, and still think them unanswered. The answer is not recognized when it comes. This is true of our common mercies and favors. We pray every morning, "Give us this day our daily bread," and then we never think of our three meals each day as being answers to prayer. We ask God for health, for clothing, for the things we need, for prosperity in business, for friends; all these things come to us in continuity, without break. But do we remember that we prayed for them, and that they come from God as answers to our requests?
The same is true of many of the spiritual blessings which we seek. We ask for holiness. It does not seem to us that we are advancing in holiness; but all the while our life is imperceptibly and unconsciously receiving more of the mind and spirit of Christ, and we are being changed into his image. We expect the answer in a marked way, while it comes silently, as the dew comes upon the drooping flowers and withering leaves. But, like the flowers and the leaves, our soul is refreshed and our life is renewed.
We put our cares into God's hands in prayer, and they do not seem to become less. We think there has been no answer to our supplications. But all the while an unseen hand has been quietly shaping, adjusting, and disentangling for us the complex affairs of our life which made us anxious. We are not conscious of it--but our prayers have been receiving continual answer in peace and blessing.
We find ourselves in the midst of circumstances which appear adverse to our happiness and good. We seem about to be crushed by sorrows, by disappointments, by trials, or by antagonisms. We pray to be saved from these distressful conditions. No answer seems to come. The shadow deepens; the blows fall. We sit in the darkness, and say that God did not answer our prayers. We are unaware of the blessing that really came to us in the time of our pain. The cup of suffering was not taken away; but we were secretly strengthened, so that we were able to drink it.
We are very ignorant. We know not how to pray as we ought. The thing we ask for is not just what we need, although we think it is. The thing we really need comes--in place of what we thought we needed. The prayer seems to be unanswered, while in fact it is answered in a far better way than if what we sought had come instead. We think it is more of God's gifts we need; these do not come--but God himself comes into our life in new fullness, imparting to us more of his love and grace. We have an answer better than we sought. The Giver is better than his best gifts.
