A Prayer Because the Silence Is the Hardest Part - Your Daily Prayer - September 12

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A Prayer Because the Silence Is the Hardest Part
By Rachel Wojo

Bible Reading
"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" Isaiah 30:18

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I can still see the dusty rose bedspread in a dorm room I'd share with five other girls. That bedspread my mother and I had chosen looked so out of place against those walls.

My parents didn't linger when it was time to say goodbye. There were hugs and a few last instructions. Then they were walking down the hall, and then they were gone.

The room filled and emptied all day. Girls came in with laundry baskets and boxes, said their names, and left again. And then at some point, everyone was out at once, and I was alone in a room built for six.

I wasn't homesick, exactly. Though I’d just turned 17, I had longed for this moment of independence. But I also wanted my parents. It was a strange feeling because I didn’t want them to come back and get me. I just wanted to know they were close enough to reach.

We had agreed I'd call home on the weekends. But sitting in that quiet room, I decided the arrangement was a test. I would not call before Friday. I would prove I could do this.

So I sat in the silence and counted the days, and I told myself counting was strength.

Isaiah is writing to people who had a similar idea. Judah was facing a threat, and God had already told them what to do about it: return, rest, be quiet, and most of all, trust. That's verse fifteen. And verse fifteen ends with four of the saddest words in the book: "But you would have none of it."

They had another plan. They went to Egypt for horses and chariots. They wanted a solution they could see. It needed to be tangible, something with hooves and wheels, or something that felt like doing rather than waiting. God offered them rest, and they went looking for something more impressive.

And then comes today’s key verse, verse eighteen. After all that refusing, God doesn't withdraw. "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion."

That word “yet” is really the hinge of the whole passage: Yet, after you went to Egypt, yet, after you would have none of it. Yet, after you decided you'd rather handle this yourself.

Look at what God does then. He rises up. He’s not a God who has gone quiet and gone away. The Hebrew behind "longs" carries the sense of waiting with intent, waiting the way you wait when you're watching the driveway. He’s in anticipation of what comes next.

What is this passage actually saying about the silence? God wasn't withholding. He was waiting. The reason nothing was happening was not that He had run out of compassion. It was that His people had decided they'd rather earn it.

I don't think God was quiet during my first week of college. I think I had confused presence with sound. My parents were a hundred miles away, and I couldn't hear them, so they felt gone. God was in that dorm room, and I couldn't hear Him, so He felt gone too. But a silent room is not an empty room.

And waiting until Friday was not a strength. It was Egypt. It was a seventeen-year-old with a rule she'd made up, refusing the phone on the wall because using it would mean she couldn't do this on her own.

Eventually, I found the new rhythms. I made friends and got to know the campus. Pretty soon, I stopped counting the days until I could talk to Mom and Dad. But the silence didn't get easier because it got quieter. It got easier because I stopped thinking that silence meant absence. I figured out how to pick up the phone whenever I needed to, even when it wasn’t Friday evening. I learned how to speak love from afar.

If you're in a season when heaven seems to have nothing to say, I want you to consider something both uncomfortable and freeing.

Some of the silence we blame on God is silence we're keeping. We've decided we have to prove something first. We've decided there's a Friday night we haven't earned our way to yet.

He is not waiting for you to be worth answering.

He is just waiting for you.

Let's Pray

Heavenly Father,

I'm sitting in the quiet today, and it's loud. You know that. You know how many times I've checked to see if You've said anything, and how many times I've come away with nothing I could hear.

Lord, I confess that some of this silence is mine. I've been proving something. I've been going to Egypt for horses when You told me to rest. I made up a rule about when I was allowed to come to You, and then I called the rule strength.

But You say You long to be gracious to me. You say You rise up to show me compassion. Not when I've earned it. Not just one day but every day.

Help me stop confusing presence with sound. Help me sit in this room and believe You're here even when nothing in it says so. I don't need You to explain the silence. I need to know You're in it.

You have been waiting for me this whole time. I surrender myself to You today. Help me stop making You wait.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

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Photo Credit: @priscilladupreez

Don’t miss this:

If you're still praying and starting to wonder if it's working, I wrote Praying Through Life's Battles: 90 Days to Strengthen Your Faith for you. You can preorder it now at battleprayers.com. Until next time, remember, God sees you, hears you, and He knows your needs.

Rachel Wojo is an inspirational author, public speaker, and podcaster known for her popular blog, rachelwojo.com. Through her biblical approach and personal life experiences, Rachel empowers women to discover strength and hope in everyday situations. Despite enduring the loss of her mother, adult special needs daughter, and father, Rachel remains resilient. She has authored the uplifting book,  Desperate Prayers: Embracing the Power of Prayer in Life's Darkest Moments  and a new beautiful, spiral-bound prayer journal, Praying the Promises of God, Rachel is crazy in love with her husband, Matt, and cherishes her motherhood with six children on earth and two in heaven.

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