What to Do in a Season of Silence
PPT 1 Series Title
This is the third and final week of our series on seasons
We have been using Ecclesiastes 3 as our launching point for the series, that passage simply states that there are a lot of different seasons in life, and though you may not believe it, God makes each one beautiful.
PPT 2 Stages of life of the Monarch Butterfly
The Monarch is a thing of beauty as an egg, as a caterpillar, as a cocoon, and as a butterfly.
I want to remind you of something I said in week 1:
Pruning often takes place just before winter. Taking that example and applying it to us we see we are cut and then left to convalesce in a time of little fruit, and we have to deal with the normal trials that a winter season brings.
We get cut then we enter a season of silence.
PPT 3 Message title: What to do in a season of silence
1Sa 3:1 The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare...
Ecclesiastes 3 lists many of the different seasons of life, for example here are a few:
PPT 4 Text:
Ec 3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
Ec 3:7 A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
Those seasons are polar opposites. I think that sometimes that is also the reality of life, and life can have some very extreme swings.
This morning I want to talk about a season that all Christians go through, and it is for most, one of the most difficult trials there is, the season of silence. That is the exact situation the bible is describing when the prophet Samuel comes on the seen. In those days the word of the Lord was rare...
In some senses that should never be true for us because we have the bible and because we have the Holy Spirit (If you are a believer), yet in reality everyone can relate to a season where it seems like God is not speaking to them.
Ecclesiastes says there is a time to be silent, so this morning I want to give some advice and encouragement if that is describing your situation right now.
1. Cooperate with the season
PPT 5 Text
Ac 26:14 "And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' (NAS)
Ac 26:14 We fell flat on our faces. Then I heard a voice in Hebrew: 'Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me? Why do you insist on going against the grain?' (MSG)
You can begin to turn the hurt of a season of silence around, when you begin to cooperate with it. Stop trying to swim against the current. Stop trying to be like Paul and go against the grain. What do I mean by that? What I simply mean is that if you feel God is not speaking to you perhaps it is a season not for Him to speak louder, but for you to learn to listen better. You can learn to do that by asking questions?
But you say, "I am not hearing God speak, what good will it do for me to ask questions?"
The good that it will do is several fold. First, by that by doing so you are saying to God, I will cooperate with the season. Secondly it will help you to redouble your efforts to hear better, more on that in a minute.
Here are a couple of good questions to ask in a season of silence:
What are you preparing me for in this season? What are you trying to put in me?
Endurance, faithfulness? Faithfulness is staying true no matter the season you are in.
What are you pruning out of me of in this season? What are you trying to take out of me?
Fickleness? An attitude that is only interested in the sensational? If you only hear when God shouts it is an indication that you are partially deaf.
This should be your resolve in a season of silence:
I may not like this season, but I am going to get something out of it.
PPT 6 Pin drop
Remember the old phone commercials, service was so good you can hear a pin drop? It takes focus to hear a pin drop. Focus may be what God is trying to get out of you. Concentration, learning to ignore all the ambient sounds, and all the other voices clamoring for our attention.
You can learn to hear without being screamed at. You can learn to hear beautiful sounds that you have been ignoring in a season of silence. Birds are chirping, the wind is singing, there are always a lot of sounds out there, but they often require focus to hear them.
Ps 32:8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.
My wife can say a lot with her eyes.
But I have never seen God's eye. How then can He guide me with it? This is how, I have to learn to look for small clues.
There is perhaps a bigger lesson even in that text. We should be trying to figure out what God is focusing on, and stop speaking about what we are focusing on. Where is his attention drawn? Often in prayer all we want to talk about is what is important to us, and because of that fact we continually try to shift the conversation that way.
More often than not, it is not that God isn't speaking, it is that we have a pressing issue He is not speaking about, and in our obsession with that issue, we ignore all other communication.
Solomon spoke of many different seasons but also gave very good advice to take and follow in all the different seasons of life:
PPT 7 text
Ec 3:12 I've decided that there's nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life.
Whatever the season, get everything you can out of it, even in a season of silence!
Here also is something the Lord teaches:
Joh 6:12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
Fragments. In a season of silence learn to gather fragments.
Pr 27:7 The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
The person who is diligent with collecting of fragments, learns to appreciate God's whispers as much as His shouts. They will also find there is as much gold in His whispers as in His shouts.
If you cooperate with your season, God has a promise of you.
PPT 8 text
1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
(NAS at the proper time)
If you do not, God has a warning for you:
PPT 9
Nu 21:5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for [there is] no bread, neither [is there any] water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.
1Co 10:10 Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
A season of light bread and fragments, can be a season of growing in new ways if you will cooperate with it. Or you can grumble and complain about the "light bread," you are getting from God. Light bread from God is just as full of a miracle as a spiritual steak dinner, to loathe it is to tell the chef He is not a very good cook, nor does He know what He is doing.
If God has ordained a season, you cannot change it, but you can decide to get everything you can out of it.
Solomon said, "I have decided that there's nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life.
Even in tough times, even in a season of silence there are fragments that can be gathered.
#1 was cooperate with the season, and number 2 is:
2. Take Courage Better Times are Coming
God promised that as long as the earth endures seasons will change, that is true in the natural and in the spiritual
PPT 10
Ge 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
If you have experienced a season of silence you will experience a season hearing as profound as your season of silence
PPT 11 Text
So 2:10 My lover has arrived and he's speaking to me! Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me!
So 2:11 Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone!
So 2:12 Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world's a choir—and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios.
So 2:13 Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me! (MSG)
My lover has arrived and He's speaking to me!
Close: God has promised there will be sunshine after rain, spring after winter, harvest after seedtime. Your season will change, but until it does cooperate the best you can, and get the most you can out of it, giving God thanks even for fragments. Prayer for those who are having a hard time hearing God speak to them.
