“Our God comes; he does not keep silence…” (Psalm 50.3 ESV)
I’ve got little kids. And with that, there are plenty of sleep-deprived or at least sleep-interrupted nights. Accidents, rowdy throw-downs, midnight one-act plays, midnight medicine runs and jaunts to the kitchen for another cup of water, a diaper change here, a massaged growth-pain there.
Plenty of “Daddy!” cries that rouse me, at least halfway, from my steady slumber (or maybe that’s the elbow I get from the other side of the bed?). Regardless, even if I don’t act immediately, I hear the petitions and the late-night cries of my little ones.
There are plenty of times in this life when it seems that God is silent to our pleas, our prayers, our cries in the middle of the night. Like the child awakened from a scary dream, we cry out to our Heavenly Father and, for a time, it can seem that we are sitting alone in the dark, our voices echoing around the halls with no one to hear them. No one to come to our aid. No one caring for our needs.
How much further from the truth could that be!
Throughout scripture, we see that God is a God of movement. He comes towards and for his people. Even in one of the longest periods of silence from God, he ends his silence with the coming of the God Man, His Son, Christ Jesus. His silence ends with the advent of the Messiah.
The psalmist reminds us of this truth when he tells us that our God comes (or is moving) and doesn’t keep silence. The Lord moves towards us in ways that we simply can’t fathom. As believers, the one who has all of creation wrapped up is the same one who knows us personally, more intimately than anyone could ever know. Through his people, he sends forth workers to the harvest of the nations. Through his Word, he is always speaking.
And therein lies the second piece of the beauty of these eight words. He doesn’t keep silence. Our God is always speaking to his people. By his very Word he holds things together! We may go through seasons where it seems that God is keeping his silence, yet it is deafening…our ears are stopped and we don’t take the time to behold what he speaks to us from the pages of his Word. While we plug our ears with our fingers, the rush of the Word of God goes by us. Yet we so often have the audacity to say that God is silent towards us.
Sometimes we may be the child crying in the night, growing pains causing our tiny feet to ache enough to wake us from slumber. And many times, those very growing pains are gifts from the Father to remind us that we are, in fact, growing, and that he is the one who we can and must call to. Regardless, your Heavenly Father hears you, and comes to your aid, in his perfect timing.