When You Can't Hear God's Voice

Imagine you're stranded on the Southwest Freeway in the heat of the day. You pull out your cell phone to call the person you trust the most: Your parent, spouse, or best friend. But there's no answer. What do you do?

Do you curse their name, call them unreliable, assume they're screening their calls and are not answering simply because they no longer like you?

Do you throw your cell phone off the overpass into the oncoming traffic and swear never to call anyone, ever again?

More likely, you assume that there's a very good reason why they didn't answer. You know that they will check their voice mail and come pick you up as soon as possible.

It's not a perfect analogy to prayer, I know (for after all, we can always call someone else in my stuck-on-the-freeway scenario). But my question is: Why don't we extend God the same benefit of the doubt when we call on Him? This Sunday, we will conclude our series on Hearing God's Voice and Knowing His Will, but I would be irresponsible if I didn't acknowledge that sometimes we can't hear His voice, no matter how hard we pray. God is not limited by human fallibility; we know He isn't too busy, away from His phone, asleep or on the other line. But we also know that He loves us. When we can't hear Him, there is always a good and valid reason. So what might some of those reasons be? And what should we do in the meantime? We'll take an honest look at those and other questions this Sunday, as we study Psalm 13.