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When There Is No Answer from God
How to Keep Praying When God Is Silent
by Marty Gool
“You prayed. Nothing recognizable happened. I am still here.”
Read an Excerpt
When There Is No Answer from God How to Keep Praying When God Is Silent
Part One
When God Does Not Respond
Chapter 1. The Room After
How to Begin When the Prayer Is Over and Nothing Has Changed You prayed.
You asked God for something that mattered.
Not something casual. Not something you would have been equally content to receive or not receive. You asked for the thing because you wanted it. You needed it. You believed God could do it.
You asked Him to heal the person you love.
You asked Him to keep the marriage from breaking.
You asked Him to bring the child home.
You asked Him to open the door, stop the danger, change the diagnosis, lift the pain, make a way, or give you some recognizable sign that your prayer had reached Him.
You prayed.
Then the prayer ended, and the room remained the same.
The telephone did not ring.
The doctor did not call with different news.
The person did not return.
The pain did not lift.
The circumstances did not move.
No voice came.
Nothing happened that you could recognize as a response to what you had just asked.
You are still here.
That is where this book begins.
Not with an explanation of why God has not responded.
Not with a theory about what God may be accomplishing beyond your sight.
Not with the declaration that silence is really an answer if you understand it correctly.
Not with the promise that everything will eventually turn out the way you hoped.
The book begins with the room after.
The prayer is over.
Nothing recognizable has happened.
The need remains.
The want remains.
And you remain.
Before you decide what the silence means, before anyone tells you what lesson you are supposed to learn from it, before you try to move yourself into a more acceptable spiritual condition, there is one thing you must do.
You must tell the truth about where you are.
That is the first practice of this book.
Begin with the Truth of the Moment
There is a pressure that comes immediately after unanswered prayer.
It is the pressure to explain.
The mind does not like silence without meaning. It wants to complete the sentence.
You prayed, and nothing happened, therefore something must be wrong with your faith.
You prayed, and nothing happened, therefore God must be angry with you.
You prayed, and nothing happened, therefore God has said no.
You prayed, and nothing happened, therefore you must have misunderstood the promise.
You prayed, and nothing happened, therefore God must be doing something greater that you cannot yet see.
Some explanations condemn you.
Some defend God.
Some try to comfort you.
Some try to close the question before the question has been allowed to remain open.
But none of those conclusions is the first thing you know.
The first thing you know is simpler.
You prayed.
No recognizable response came.
The situation remains what it was.
You are still here.
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