When we look at the nature of God, we come to know that He is a loving God and always keeps his fellowship with human beings because He created them in His own image. Man has the skill to speak, listen, and time to adopt silence.

What will happen when God is silent in your life?

Today, I want to share my anguish in my experience of God’s silence in my life at various times.

When I was a child and growing up, I used to attend church and Sunday school regularly. My parents always paid attention to spiritual formation, and I was taught by the church and my father that our God is alive, and He is ready to listen to our prayers and answer. I was trained to pray, and that God would answer. When I was a child, I prayed for many toys and other things, but He was not answering. Sometimes He answered my prayers, but in most of my prayers, He was silent. This always irritated me when the church and my father said that He listens, but in my personal experience, it seemed that He was not listening. The situation was quite unexpected for me. Living in a Muslim society, I had to stand with my faith. When I got admission to college, I was the only Christian in my class. I was brought up in a society where you could have to face mental and physical persecution at any time. You looked with the eyes of ambiguity. Maybe there were the times of my faith temptation.

(Man is a weak body that God has placed here to test faith so that His name is glorified).

Many of my classmates used to taunt and make fun of me, and they would say, "We have heard that your God answers prayers and your God heals the sick. Now come with us to the hospital and heal the patients so that the hospital is empty." I can never forget a phrase from one of my teachers in the class. He said to me, "Your God raised people from the dead, and He listens to your prayers. Can you pray and revive my chicken that died this morning?" The whole class got a big laugh. I came back with this criticism and question. Why does He not answer? I know my God is alive, but I need to know about this secret about His silence. Why does He not answer? Sometimes some questions can change your life and direction.

Often this kind of long silence leads to frustration and failure. Finally, I asked a pastor about this kind of situation, and he tried to give me the answer but could not satisfy me. He told me two important points:

1. If there is sin in your life, God does not hear.
2. If your prayer is weak, Satan can block it.

I meditated on these two answers, and I came to the conclusion that there was no such kind of hurdle in my life. Here I would like to also share my other experience. I have been working for God in His ministry since 2003. During my pastoral ministry from June 2015 to the end of 2022, God was silent in my life, even in my prayers. I would shout and cry, but He was silent, and it was a very hard time for me and my family. I faced despair and failure, hopeless. During this difficult time, I found many people searching for the answer to this question. I want to tell you, God will never forget you. In my experience, God’s silence was a period of preparation for the blessings that would come to me. Kindly read the gospel of John chapter 11. This story reveals the secret of silence. There was a friend of Jesus named Lazarus, and Jesus loved him. When the news of Lazarus  Lazarus’ illness came to Jesus, he remained silent. It could have been very painful for his family that Jesus was not answering. They sent a second message to him that he was sick and Jesus said that this disease was not unto death, but for the glory of God. When he died Jesus started crying and came back and raised him from the dead.

Now I want to conclude my story. When God is silent in your life, be ready, because He is going to do some big in your life.  If He had healed Lazarus, there would not have been as great a work.  The silence was because if you die, I will bring you back to life and tell you why I was silent. That’s the silence of great love and blessings. God broke his silence in my life like Lazarus, so I want to encourage you if God is silent in your life, do not be despairing and hopeless, but prepare yourself, for He is going to open a big revelation in your life with a bundle of blessings. Be ready and receive it and glorify his name.

Pastor Barkat is a graduate of Punjab University. After receiving a call to ministry in 1999 he attended Gujranwala Theological Seminary, graduating in 2003 with a Master of Divinity (His thesis covered a Biblical model of house churches.) Upon graduating he started pastoral ministry with the Anglican Church and was ordained in 2004, working within that church in different positions until mid 2015 when he got the opportunity for a short training program on Pneumatology from South Korea. Suneel currently is a visiting teacher in an evangelical Bible College empowered by Korean Mission in Pakistan, as well as doing independent teaching and preaching ministry. He has established many Bible study groups and I have passion to preach in remote areas of Pakistan.