Isaiah 64:1-9
When God Hides
Have you ever had a winter season of faith? You pray, but your prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling? You wonder if you really know God, or if God knows you? Philip Yancey, in his book, “Reaching for the Invisible God,” writes: “I experienced the sense of abandonment just as I was making progress spiritually, advancing beyond childish faith to the point where I felt I could help others. Suddenly, the darkness descended. For an entire year, my prayers seemed to go nowhere; I had no confidence that God was listening. No one had prepared me for ‘the ministry of absence’” (p. 242). If we’re honest, we can relate to Yancey in experiencing these dry seasons of faith.
There are lots of reasons why God may remain silent or seem distant or hidden. Maybe he is teaching you something, building your character during your waiting time. Maybe God has something better in mind for you, if you will just wait for his timing. Or maybe ... there is unconfessed sin in your life.
Sometimes God is silent because, let’s be honest, we’re not right with God. And that is the gist of today’s passage. Isaiah wrote these words as a national confession. He wrote them prophesying about a time when Jerusalem and Judah would be in ruins. He knew the devastation was coming because of the sin of God’s people.
As I look at this passage, I notice an honest way to pray through God’s silence. Isaiah was praying for his nation and himself. We would do well to follow his model. Consider this a four-step approach to reach out to God in those times when heaven seems silent. Step 1:
1. Recall what God has done in the past.
Isaiah begins here by remembering the smoke and fire God of Mount Sinai. In verses 1-3 he recalls how the mountain trembled and the fire came down. All of Israel knew there was but one true God. And all of the surrounding nations knew it as well.
When our faith seems as dry as a South Texas creek bed in the middle of August, we need to remember what God has done in our past. After all, we only have faith doubts because we know what it is like to have strong faith! So let us remember the God of our earlier days, because he is the same God today.
The ancient Israelites used spiritual markers to remember. For instance, right before they entered the Promised Land, Joshua directed each tribe to bring him a boulder, and he piled up the twelve boulders in a big heap near the Jordan River. He told them, “When your kids and grandkids ask about this pile of boulders, tell them what God has done. Tell them how God dried up the Jordan so we could cross on dry land. Tell them how God defeated our enemies and led us into the land he promised” (Joshua 4).
We need to remember; otherwise, we are quick to forget God’s goodness of the past. We need to share what God has done with our kids and grandkids and our neighbors and fellow church members. We need to brag on God! When you don’t hear from God now, recall what God has done in the past. Those recollections will build your faith muscles and get you ready for step 2, which is to...
2. Rehearse what God can do in the present.
Maybe God’s not answering your prayer yet, but tell him what you think he could do in your situation. Rehearse what God could do, as if it is already happening. Isaiah rehearses with beautiful poetry in verses 4 and 5: “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.” The Apostle Paul later would borrow from this verse to recall God’s saving act through Christ (1 Corinthians 2:9). Isaiah urges us to believe in a big God who can do great things. As the angel Gabriel told Mary, “With God, nothing is impossible” (Luke 1:37).
God’s part is to act, but notice that our part is to wait. Isaiah talks of a God “who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.” In Psalm 40:1, the psalmist declares, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”
Learn to wait on the Lord. His timing is perfect. When it comes to waiting, I always think of Abraham and Sarah, who were waiting in their elderly years for God’s promised son. They finally gave up and helped God a little, through Sarah’s maid servant. And out of Ishmael’s birth came serious family dysfunction. Yet, in God’s perfect timing, after 25 years of waiting, Isaac was born.
While you are waiting, recall what God has done and rehearse what God could do. And as you reflect on the holy nature of God, you will be led to the third step, which is to...
3. Repent of whom you have become.
Repentance, for the Christian, is a very positive action. In military speak, it means, “about face.” You turn away from your sin and back to God. Now the city of San Antonio believes in repentance. You’ll be driving down I-410, and you realize, “Rats! I went too far! I passed my store. What am I going to do now?” You could just keep driving in the direction you’re going, deciding it’s too hard to change. You could just say, “It’s not that important for me to change.” But you really, really want to change direction and go to that store. So what do you do? You take a “turn-around,” a free U-turn underneath the freeway. Next time you take one of those turnarounds, think about repentance.
Isaiah writes, in verses 5-7, “But when we continued to sin against [your ways], you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.” This is a bleak picture indeed. Isaiah draws on some very strong images here. He describes how sin dries us up like a shriveled leaf and blows us away with a single gust of wind. He says, all of our good works are but filthy rags. The Hebrew words refer to the cloths a woman used for menstruation. That’s how clean our best acts are apart from God. We think we’re hot stuff, but not so much in God’s eyes, when we act apart from him.
As AA says, we are powerless to live the way we should. We need and absolutely must have a higher power at work in our life. And that brings us to step 4, to:
4. Rely on God as your only hope.
Isaiah uses a picture of a potter and clay. Our youngest son recently got into pottery in his art lessons. The fate of the piece of pottery is completely in the hands of the potter. As the Apostle Paul would later write, the pottery can’t say to the potter, “Do this with me” (Romans 9:20-21). All we can do is trust ourselves to the potter who claims us as his own. As Isaiah puts it in verse 9, we are God’s people. “Here we are, God. Don’t be angry forever. We need you and you alone. Our best efforts won’t do it. They are but filthy rags. We need you. You are our salvation. You’re the only one who can help me with ... my gossip habit, my lustful thoughts, my laziness, my depression, my hoarding, my gluttony, my foul mouth, my... [you fill in the blank]. You alone, God, are my salvation.”
And so we come to Communion. Jesus says, “Take, eat, drink, in remembrance of me.” We feel unworthy. And apart from Christ in our lives, we are unworthy. Yet, with Christ, we are forgiven. We take, we eat, and we drink, remembering the Lord Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, the one who endured the path to the cross, on our behalf, who became the propitiation for our sins, the satisfier of all of God’s rightful wrath concerning our sinful selves. In Jesus, we have forgiveness through his blood.
And we know that God still cares, that God still considers us his people. Just as God delivered Israel from exile, God will deliver us. God will save us. God will no longer hide his presence from us. God will answer our prayers. Let us pray:
Thank you, God, that you a righteous God, totally unapproachable if it weren’t for the perfect sacrifice of your son Jesus. When we have those dry times of faith, help us to trust that you are still there, still caring and working for good for those who love you and watch for your purposes to unfold. Help us learn to repent faster and return to you quicker, so that we can draw closer to you this Christmas season. We ask this all in the name of Jesus, our Lord, amen.
