What to do when God goes quiet

Sunday Rewind - each week I share a sermon from the Battle Ready Sermons archive. My role has shifted to training the next generation of Salvation Army officers at William Booth College, so I’m no longer preaching every Sunday, but God’s word doesn’t go out of date. These messages are here to encourage, challenge, and point you to Jesus, whenever you need them.

This week’s sermon was originally preached 13 June 2021.

Dear friend.

Have you ever prayed and heard nothing back? Have you cried out to God in the middle of the night and been met with silence?

If you have, you are in very good company. The writer of Psalm 22 knows exactly how you feel. He starts with one of the rawest cries in all of Scripture - “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” - and if those words sound familiar, it is because Jesus used them too, from the cross at the lowest point of his earthly life.

Feeling abandoned by God is not a sign that your faith has failed. It is part of the honest human experience of following him.

But here is what I find so remarkable about this psalm. Right in the middle of the darkness, the psalmist chooses one small pivot. One word. Yet. He cannot feel God. He cannot hear God. And yet - he chooses to remember. He chooses to recall God’s faithfulness to those who went before him. And then he goes to his church family and gives his testimony.

Your testimony - your story of God’s faithfulness, however small - can give someone else the hope they need to keep going.

This week’s sermon explores Psalm 22 and asks: what do we do as God’s people when he feels absent? I think the answer will encourage you.

👇 Watch the full sermon here:

With you on the journey.

Rob