When God Seems Silent, He Is Still at Work

When Hope Comes Home—An Eight-Week Journey Toward Advent

I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the Lord says and how he will answer my complaint.

Then the Lord said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. – Habakkuk 2:1-3 NLT

But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. – Galatians 4:4 NLT

Have you ever wondered if God is listening? I have had seasons of life where I have wondered that.

And though that may sound like a strange question coming from someone with more than four decades in pastoral ministry, if we’re honest with each other, there are seasons of life when even the most faithful wonder whether our prayers are getting past the ceiling.

You’ve been faithful to pray for your church. You’ve pleaded with God to breathe new life into a congregation that seems to have lost its sense of purpose. You’ve spent time praying for new families to find their way to your church. You’ve prayed for that one person that seems close to giving their life to Christ. And yet, Sunday after Sunday, nothing seems to change. You feel as though your ministry is in constant repeat mode.

You look out at the same friendly faces that sit in exactly the same seat each week. Monday will greet you with the same challenges as last week. Your leadership meetings still rehash the same concerns— “We need to grow. We need more resources.” And somewhere in the quiet of your evening and the deep recesses of your heart, you find yourself asking, “Lord, are You doing anything?”

You are not alone. We’ve all been there.

When Heaven Seems Quiet

The prophet Habakkuk knew something about waiting for God. He saw the injustice, violence, and spiritual decline of his people and cried out to God for answers.

“How long, O Lord, must I call for help? But you do not listen!” – Habakkuk 1:2 NLT

Does that sound familiar?

Habakkuk wasn’t questioning whether God existed. He was wrestling to understand why the God he trusted was seemingly blind to what was happening. And when God finally answered, His response wasn’t what Habakkuk expected. God told him to write down the revelation an make it plain:

“If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.”

God was reminding the prophet that He hadn’t forgotten. He was still in control. He was working to His timetable, not Habakkuk’s.

And that is difficult lesson for us in ministry. We live in a church world that measures our success by attendance, financial reports, building projects, and tangible results. It forces us to work harder so that our efforts make a difference to an annual report. And when those results don’t come quick enough, we begin to wonder if there’s something wrong with us. Did we miss something? But God’s silence is not evidence of God’s absence.

A lack of visible progress is not necessarily a lack of spiritual activity.

Four Hundred Years of Waiting

Think about the time period between Malachi and Matthew. For about four hundred years Israel received no new prophetic revelation preserved in the Bible comparable to the Old Testament prophets. Generations came and went. God’s people saw empires rise and fall. Political powers were constantly shifting. They endured oppression, disappointment, and uncertainty.

They read the promises of the prophets and continued to long for the Messiah. And then, in a little village called Bethlehem, something extraordinary happened. Paul describes it simply and beautifully in Galatians 4:4 - But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.

Did you catch it? When the right time came!

It didn’t come when Israel demanded it or when the circumstances were favorable. It didn’t happen when the people figured everything out. It happened when God’s appointed time had arrived.

While generations waited, God was preparing the world for the arrival of His Son.

Rome had established roads and transportation routes that would help carry the Gospel to the known world. The common Greek language made it possible that the Good News could be communicated across cultures. What appeared to be centuries of waiting became part of the drama of God’s redemptive plan. God had not forgotten. God was preparing to come near to us.

What If God is Preparing Something You Cannot See?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how this time of waiting applies to smaller churches. One of the greatest temptations in pastoral ministry is to confuse activity with progress and visible results with faithfulness.

We want to see a packed sanctuary on Sunday. We want the ministries of the church to flourish. We want to see people respond the Gospel message. We want to hear the enthusiasm in the voices of our leaders when we introduce a new vision for the congregation. And there’s nothing wrong with desiring those things. But what happens when we’ve been faithful and the results are not apparent?

You’ve preached the Word, loved the people, visited the sick, encouraged the discouraged and painted a vision of what God might do through your congregation to the community, but still the church seems stuck. Perhaps the question we need to ask isn’t “Why isn’t God doing something?” Maybe we should ask, “What might God be doing that I cannot see?”

Maybe God is work preparing the heart of someone who will become your next leader in the church. Maybe He’s through a relationship you’ve been cultivating for months, or even years. Maybe He’s teaching your church to depend less on programs and more on prayer. Or, perhaps He’s doing something in you, Pastor.

Perhaps He’s developing your patience, strengthening your trust, or teaching you that your worth has never depended on the number of sheep in your pasture. We don’t always know what God is doing behind the scenes. But we can know this: God’s faithfulness is not measured by the speed of His answers.

Waiting Is Not the Same as Doing Nothing

Here’s what I’ve learned over the many years I’ve been in ministry to small town and rural churches—waiting on God doesn’t mean we sit around and do nothing until something miraculous happens. Habakkuk said, I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the Lord says and how he will answer my complaint. (Habakkuk 2:1 NLT)

Habakkuk took his position. He remained faithful. He expected God to speak.

And that’s the kind of waiting we need to practice. While we are waiting for God to bring renewal, keep making disciples. This season of waiting is not a pass for getting off mission. Do what you can and trust God for the rest.

Keep loving on people that are already in our care. Keep looking for ways to serve our neighbors. Remain faithful to the mission Jesus has already given us. Continue doing what God has called you to do, trusting Him with what only He can accomplish.

As I always say, “No faith is required when you’re comfortable.” Perhaps I should add something to that—No patience is required when everything happens on our schedule.

Did you ever consider that the greatest demonstration of faith isn’t taking a giant leap into the unknown? Sometimes it’s getting up on another Sunday morning, opening the doors, preaching the Gospel, loving your people, and believing that God is still at work. Even when you can’t see it.

Advent Is Coming

In just a few short weeks, Christians around the world will observe Advent—a season of waiting, anticipation, and preparation. It’s a time when we remember Israel’s longing for the promised Messiah, celebrate Christ’s first coming, and look forward to His triumphant return.

But Advent reminds us that waiting and hoping belong together. The Israelites didn’t know when Messiah would come or how God would fulfill His promises. And when Jesus finally came, He came in an unexpected way that surprised almost everyone.

He wasn’t found in a palace or leading a great army. He came as a baby, born of humble circumstances, in a little out-of-the-way town called Bethlehem. And if God could bring the hope of the world to a little town like that, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss what He might be able to do through a little church in a small town.

Pastor, I want to encourage you, don’t lose heart. Your prayers are being heard. Your faithfulness is not forgotten. And your church’s story is not necessarily finished simply because this current chapter seems to be taking longer than you expected. The God who kept His promise to send a Savior is still faithful today.

Keep praying. Keep loving. Keep making disciples. And keep watching for the movement of God. Because when God seems silent, He is still at work.

If you’re serving a small congregation and you’re still waiting for God to bring about renewal, I want to encourage you do something this week. Instead of focusing on what hasn’t happened, look for one small evidence of God at work in your congregation. It might be a person growing in faith. It might be a new relationship with someone in the community. You might see a quiet act of generosity.  Or, it might just be someone new asking you questions about Jesus.

Celebrate that! Then ask God to give you the patience needed to remain faithful while He continues to work. Harvest never comes in the same season of planting. But that doesn’t make the planting any less important.

Join Me on the Journey Toward Advent

This is the first article of an eight-week journey I’m calling When Hope Comes Home: Preparing Our Hearts for the God Who Comes Near.

Every Monday, we will explore how God meets with us in seasons of waiting, uncertainty, disappointment, and ordinary faithfulness as we prepare our hearts for Christmas. These reflections will also for the foundation for a new Advent devotional I’m currently working on. It will have sixteen devotions centered on hope, peace, joy, and love.

Next Monday, we will take a look at “The Holy Work of Waiting” and see why some of God’s most extraordinary work takes place in the seasons of life we would rather hurry through.

And I’d love to hear from you in the comments:

Have you experienced a season wen God seemed silent, only to find out later that He had been working all along?

Your story might be the exact encouragement another pastor needs to hear.

And if this article has been a blessing to you, please share it with a pastor or church leader who needs to be reminded that God is still writing their story.