When all we have left is God and He remains silent, we need a faith that endures, even when our resources are depleted and we feel as though we have been forgotten.
“You know, I don’t want to be somewhere else anymore. I’m not waiting for anything new to happen… not looking around the next corner and over the next hill. I’m here now. That’s enough.” These are the words of C. S. Lewis (played by Anthony Hopkins in the film The Shadowlands), who was celebrating the last happy days with his wife before her illness returned with a vengeance.
It is difficult to savour the present moment without looking ahead to the next chapter, when, although you do not know everything about it, you still know enough to dampen your joy. Similarly, it is hard to trust God in the midst of a storm and remain anchored in Him when every fibre of your being cries out to escape this terrifying situation.
Unemployment, car accidents, children going astray, divorce, abusive relationships, and financial losses are just some of the crises that trap us at some point in our lives (while news of war, pandemics, inflation, and natural disasters amplifies our individual problems in the background).
We may find ourselves in a calm, promising stage of our journey, but there will inevitably be challenges ahead. This could be a time when our lives are shattered into a thousand pieces, our dreams are crushed and the crisis seems to have become our shadow for an unbearably long time. How do we manage to keep our faith, even in the midst of hopeless situations?
The prayer that opens heaven
“Thousands and tens of thousands of prayers may have to ascend to God before the full answer is obtained,” wrote George Müller. “Much exercise of faith and patience may be required; but in the end it will again be seen that His servant, who trusted in Him, has not been confounded.” The man who cared for over 10,000 orphans, relying solely on prayer, confessed that he looked only to the living God to meet his many material needs.
In 1874, providing for the 2,200 orphans in the five existing orphanages required an enormous sum of £1.1 million per year. Recording in his diary the impossibility of obtaining this sum through his own means, Müller added that his heart was full of peace, even if he had to relive times of crisis, when he would wait from day to day, and even from meal to meal, for God’s intervention.
Faith that endures through the ages
Following George Müller’s death, newspapers acknowledged that his work was of a supernatural nature, or at least worthy of closer analysis in an attempt to elucidate the mechanisms behind his seemingly impossible yet successful mission. Questioning how such a miracle could have been achieved other than through faith, as Müller had insisted throughout his life, the Liverpool Mercury concluded that “the facts remain” and that “It would be unscientific to belittle historical occurrences when they are difficult to explain, and much juggling would be needed to make the Orphanages on Ashley Down vanish from view.”
In a sceptical century, the Daily Telegraph wrote that the life of this man reached such a level of the miraculous that it seems simply unbelievable. Müller was not mistaken in his reasoning; he rejoiced in the face of insurmountable difficulties, convinced that, when deliverance came, it would bear the unmistakable signature of divine intervention.
“God has a heaven full of blessings that He wants to bestow on those who are earnestly seeking for that help which the Lord alone can give,” writes Christian author Ellen White.
However, the problem we face is maintaining our faith when the answer to prayer is delayed or does not come in the form we expected. Christian author Eric Ludy points out that there are several tests of faith that God allows us to go through:
- God seems silent and indifferent to our requests (even though others receive answers) while we are in danger or in the midst of a pressing need.
- God seems to have forgotten us.
- The storms we go through seem too powerful to overcome.
- The final test comes when God seems to have failed, as happened to the disciples when Jesus allowed Himself to be arrested, tortured, and crucified, despite their bright hopes for the Messiah’s mission.
For those who want to believe, divine silence is a very harsh test, writes Professor Roberto Badenas, adding that we cannot judge the One who embodies love and wisdom based on His intervention or silence in the crisis situations we find ourselves in. When we invite Him to stay with us, as the disciples did on their way to Emmaus, His presence becomes the solution to all our limitations and pains.
Waiting patiently and hopefully
Author Henri Nouwen writes about how trapeze artists move in harmony, focusing on the moment when the jumper is in the air for a brief instant—it is too late to grab the trapeze again, yet too early to be caught by his partner. For this brief moment, his task is to wait. Christian writer John Ortberg uses this illustration to talk about those critical moments when you feel like you’ve let go of every other anchor, but you can’t see God’s hand catching you, which is why waiting becomes hard to bear.
Waiting is a spiritual discipline that reveals more than anything else the quality of our faith.
The first condition for waiting on God is humility, because waiting for something is an acknowledgement that we are not in control, explains Ortberg. Christian author Elisabeth Elliot points out that waiting is a discipline of spiritual life that reveals more than anything else the quality of our faith, explaining that waiting is not the same as doing nothing.
Psalm 37 outlines some of the elements of this hidden activity: trusting in the Lord, dwelling in the land and doing good, making the Lord the delight of our hearts, entrusting our fate to the Lord, and remaining silent or submitting to Him. Elliot believed that waiting is the greatest task ever entrusted to a Christian, requiring trust that God will care for and lead us in the best possible way.
Indeed, Ortberg observes that waiting and faith are so intertwined in the biblical account that they sometimes substitute for each other. Abraham waited two-and-a-half decades for the fulfilment of the promise of his son’s birth. The people of Israel waited 400 years for deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Simeon waited a lifetime for the birth of the promised Messiah. When asked why we must wait when we long for God to answer us immediately, Ortberg points out that what God is doing in us during this waiting period is at least as important as the things we are waiting for.
Power from the Word
Far from being a mere collection of words, the Word of God is “alive and active” (Hebrews 4:12), as the apostle Paul assures us. The Bible contains countless promises that God makes to us in good times and in times of trouble, for this life and the next. However, Christian author Mike Jones emphasises that, in order to truly benefit from these promises, we need to access the power within them. He explains how we can make the transition from mere readers of the Word to beneficiaries of divine promises.
Although there is power in God’s words, we do not benefit from them until we unleash that power, just as a bullet’s power remains untriggered outside of a gun. Our spiritual life is fuelled by the Word. In order to feed on God’s promises, we must read, memorise, and apply them to our situation, exercising our faith that God will do what He says He will do.
When we place our lives in His hands, no crisis can bring us down.
Even when God seems to ignore our requests, it is essential to continue believing that all things work together for the benefit of those who love God (Romans 8:28), and that He is faithful to every promise He makes. Taking God at His word is one of the most effective strategies for weathering seemingly endless crises, but this trust must be coupled with the decision to surrender our lives to God.
“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him” (Job 13:15)—when we adopt Job’s attitude of surrender, we transition from defeat to victory because, when we place our lives in God’s hands, no crisis can break us, the writer concludes.
Faith that endures while waiting for His answer
Recalling his experiences when he was hospitalised with a grim diagnosis and being given morphine, Pastor David Jeremiah outlines some answers to the trials of the Christian life. He makes reference to the experiences and conclusions of the author of Psalm 71 (who remains anonymous, although Pastor Jeremiah is convinced that it was written by David as a continuation of the previous psalm).
In suffering, we must remember the character of God, as Pastor Jeremiah points out. When everything around us is falling apart, we must turn our attention to God and remember that while everything changes, He remains unchanged and always trustworthy. Confused by the multitude of methods for treating his newly diagnosed cancer, as well as by the certainty with which others drew conclusions about why he was going through this terrible ordeal, Pastor Jeremiah confesses that he found peace by trusting in God and in what he already knew about Him.
Another antidote to moments of despair is meditating on God’s mercy throughout history. Pastor Jeremiah draws on his memories of God’s faithfulness to find balance in the present uncertainty, concluding that God has been his benefactor in his youth and even before he was born, and remains a refuge in times of crisis.
The ability to praise God in times of crisis is a sign of godliness, and a powerful way to combat discouragement. It also indicates that we have regained our trust in God and the future.
Rather than embracing the cynicism of Murphy’s Law, which states that “if something can go wrong, it will,” we should follow the path set out for us by Psalm 71: anything that goes wrong can be used by God to align with the good plans He has for us. We need not fear a future in which events will go off the rails; we can trust in a God who can work great things through those who have allowed themselves to be broken, changed, and matured by trials.
Faith that endures because He is with us
The Old Testament testifies to God’s presence among people, sometimes bringing judgment, but most often driven by compassion. This culminated in His decision to take on human form and set foot on this suffering-ravaged earth, bringing hope while simultaneously disrupting the lives of those He encountered.
The birth of the One of whose body “we are members” turned the lives of Mary and Joseph upside down, notes Professor Georges Stéveny. Dismayed by the news of the pregnancy, Joseph intended to break off his engagement to Mary, but then had a visit from an angel which changed his plans. Mary’s faith is truly impressive, and her response is all the more moving in that it shows she understood the hardships that would follow the birth of Jesus: “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”
The birth of the Messiah had been long awaited by God’s servants throughout the ages. However, when that moment came, things turned out very differently from what people had expected, as Elizabeth Viera Talbot, director of the media centre at the Jesus 101 Biblical Institute, points out. First, His parents entered uncharted territory where they were asked to have faith without receiving answers to the many questions they must have had. The shepherds, the Magi, Simeon, and Anna also found themselves on a similar path of faith and uncertainty with the birth of Jesus—”the most beautiful story in the world/And the grandest story ever/The only interesting story that ever happened,” as the poet Charles Péguy wrote.
What was asked of them is also asked of us: to belief that God is faithful and always present; that He is in control of unusual situations; and that His plans succeed, even if we do not understand them.
“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,” lamented the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 64:1). Looking back at history, we know that He came down among us and suffered all our pains. His promise to be with us “always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) is all the more credible given that the love He showed us was not measured in words, but in blood.
Carmen Lăiu is an editor at Signs of the Times Romania and ST Network.
