Many Times, Many Ways - Part 3

Part 1 –The character of our communicative God!

Part 2 –God’s good for us in silence or the quiet voice  

There are nights that the heavens declare the glory of God and they just sparkle with voice and shine with song and twinkle in cantata. They illustrate how willing God is to communicate (Part 1). There are other evenings when the clouds loom, and the stars are hidden. We long for a more tangible and clear experience with God and his voice, but he seems silent or merely guides us in the minutiae of life. Yet, we examined how this too may be for our good from the abundance of his heart (Part 2).

But sometimes the dusk creeps over the fields and the fog from the warm ground rises in the cooling night. The fog is thick and dense; worse than silence, it is overwhelming. So, too, there are times when our anxiety rises, choking us. The starlight seems chocked, blocked. Fog, tree branches, city lights, numerous obstacles seem to block the light.  Are there times in which God’s voice is blocked? Not by sin, rebellion, or our unwillingness to hear or obey, but by our anxiety, our worry, our own thoughts, or Satan? Can his voice be blocked biologically, psychologically, or spiritually?

We are beings of dust; we live in a body, a body that is too broken by the fall. Anxiety can be caused by temperament, spiritual reasons, chosen sin, but also for biological reasons—GABA, glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, all wreaking unbalanced havoc. As Christians, we cannot say this plays no role at all (“If you just had more faith, you wouldn’t be anxious…”), nor can we say it is the entire problem (“Anxiety is a disease, you are just a victim and have no control…”). So first of all, it is. It is neither a reason for condemnation or excuse.

Second, it is often heightened in times in which we need guidance. Heart and brain interact. Circumstances stress synapses and chemicals. The burden of decision, the uncertainty looming, the high stakes that seem to rest, the feeling of not knowing all the factors can all increase anxiety. It is then that we seek God! We do! We seek, we cry out for guidance. But instead of a peace-filled direction, all that seems to come is streams of anxious thoughts. No clear direction. Anxiety heightens. Why is God not speaking? We go on witch hunts in our own hearts—might there be some sin? Who is God anyway? Where is he? Why am I not hearing? The fog is no mere beauty to gasp at the beauty of, but chokes. We are seeking to go somewhere; we cannot see for the fog. Lost. Circles.

Yet, the light will overcome the dark. I do believe the Bible’s testimony is that God can speak over our anxiety and other hindrances. Biologically, was it not God who created the body, the synapses, the neurons, the hormones? Is he not the one who sustains the body and its finite workings? He, the communicative God, who created us to hear and receive communication, must have power over the chemical impediments. The light will overcome, for he is Creator.

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” (Exodus 4:11).

Psychologically, there is chosen and unchosen anxiety.  I do think  there are times we can allow our worry to block God’s voice when we choose to engage in worry and not listen to him. I do not want to undermine Jesus’ command, “Do not worry” (Matt. 6:25-34). It is a command. He has given us rational, emotional, and spiritual reasons not to worry. Sometimes we undermine that and just see worry as a little, excusable thing. Something we are just prone to. We mask what it truly reveals about our heart—unbelief in God’s goodness and power.

Yet, on the other hand, by temperament or biology, I and some very good friends of mine have been in a place where we are doing all we can to cease being anxious. We do not undermine the command to not worry. We are willing; we are desirous—oh, how we long to be rid of our anxiety and to stem the stream of thoughts! We try to obey the command to not worry. Thought-stopping techniques, prayer, Scripture meditation and reading, distraction, going for a walk, medication doesn’t help. Broken body. Brain fog. Too often, instead of seeing God’s compassion, we walk around with shame. “I can’t. I’m a failure. I’m weak. I can’t conquer the anxiety. I’m a sinner because I worry. I lack faith. God is disappointed in me.” No! Satan loves us in anxiety, and loves even more to let our anxiety drive a wedge between us and our Lord. The genuinely searching and willing Christian can have anxiety. It is this throat-grabbing, mind-wrenching, uncontrollable, insidious stream of anxiety to which I ask—is the Lord able to, and willing to speak over?

God is both willing to and has the power to speak to the anxious heart. He has the power. He was able to speak to us while we were unregenerate and spark faith in our heart, allow us to hear his voice calling us to him. If he could speak to us when we were separated from him, blind in sin, can he not speak to us now no matter how much the fog seems to block the light, the anxiety seems to swamp us? He spoke to the psalmist when he speaks of being overwhelmed, crushed, swallowed up, non-functioning in grief and dismay (Ps. 55:5; Ps. 38:8; Ps. 69:15; Ps. 22:14; Ps. 102:3-6 ). The Bible speaks of God’s power over human hearts and emotions (Deut. 2:25; Deut. 2:30; Jer. 32:40; 1 Sam. 10:9 ; Ps. 51:10; etc. ). He knows thoughts, controls thoughts, governs thoughts, renews thoughts (Ps. 33:15; Lk. 6:8; Rom. 12:2 ). I think it reasonable to conclude that God thus has the power to speak to anxious hearts, despite biological and psychological barriers. The darkness cannot overcome the light.

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 103:13-14).

Moreover, the Lord is willing to speak to the anxious heart. He is compassionate. He knows we are but dust (Ps. 103:13-14). And Christ, too, was a man and tempted to worry and anxiety, but never sinned. He is therefore able to help us in our weakness (Heb. 4:14-16). Again and again, we see his heart for the meek, the poor in spirit, the brokenhearted, the burdened, the weary, the contrite, the broken in heart (Ps. 34:18; Isa. 57:15; Isa. 61:1-3 ). Run to him in our anxiety, with all our burdens! He will not shame us for being weak. Let our anxiety create in us brokenness of heart, and give it to him.

This does not mean that we throw back our hands and do not exert discipline to seek him, to try to control our anxiety. We must try to learn his ways, study his voice, know his character so as to discern his voice. Again, let our anxiety drive us to him! Psychologically, anxiety cannot present a barrier. The light will overcome.

Spiritually, God is more powerful than the enemy who will try to confuse us. Yet, it is a battle. Satan will try to create anxiety, block God’s voice, whisper other things in our ears. He will haul out his fog machine and cause it to swirl around us. Do not undermine the prayer for protection that Jesus taught the disciples (Mt. 6:13). He himself prayed for his disciples’ protection from the evil one (Lk. 22:31-32; Jn. 17:11, 12, 15). The response to Daniel’s prayer was obstructed by evil (Dan. 10:12-13).

However, God’s power is greater. The Apostle John felt confident God’s children could discern God’s voice over Satan’s (1 Jn. 4:1; 1 Jn. 2:27). John probably was confident of this because he heard Christ himself say his sheep will know his voice apart from the thieves, strangers, and hired hands (John 10). It is God’s Spirit who helps. Moreover, God has power over Satan. Satan cannot touch us without permission from God, and Christ himself is interceding for us (Job 1 & 2; Lk. 22:31-32; Jn. 17:11, 12, 15; Heb. 7:25; Rom. 8:34). What confidence we can have! Rest our minds in that. The light will overcome. The stars and moon will penetrate the fog.

Biologically, psychologically, and spiritually, our communicative God can speak over anxiety. It may not be easy. We may have to train extra hard to discern his voice, to study his ways, and to know him. We may struggle and fight as we employ Scripture meditation, prayer times, medication, and other ways to calm the anxiety. But God can speak over and above the anxiety. And he has created guardrails to help us, outside voices to help us learn to distinguish in other mature Christians, circumstances, and Scripture.

So God is willing, and he can. But that leaves a final query in the swirl of fog—what if he doesn’t? What if we still feel left in the fog, in the confusion and tumble and swirl of voices. We fear tripping. But we don’t know which way to turn, how to discern, what is anxiety, what is God, and where we are, and where he is, and…. There is no easy answer. It may go back to one of the mysterious reasons in Part 2. He may be asking us to grow in faith, to train hard. To study him and know him. He may be preparing things quietly and asking us to wait. It is not easy—but trust in faith the character of our God, who knows what we need to know at this moment, what we do not need to know at this moment, and when we do need to know it. And he will be faithful to reveal it in time. Anxiety chokes and clamors; it is not easy to wait. But neither is our waiting purposeless; we are not left hanging; and we are not waiting alone. We can trust his character, the character of a God who so longs to communicate that he sent his own Son. The starlight can penetrate fog; but if God chooses not to allow it, we know the sun will come. His light will come, even in a fog-ridden, sin-bound world.