Making Sense
of the Silence of Prayer
Knowing how to recognize when God is speaking to us is an essential part
of spiritual development. Without that
knowledge, we miss the intimations of the still, small voice and blow
opportunities to aim higher, reach farther and attain greater.
There are times in our lives when it’s not the heavens that have reached
down to us, but instead, we reach to the heavens for answers. Most often, this is done in silent or vocal prayer.
Unfortunately, even in prayer, we may be trying our best to listen to
God, and we hear nothing back. You
receive no response – not in your head, not in your heart. No where.
You begin to think, “What did I do?”, “God, I’m talking to you. Why aren’t you speaking to me?” and try to
make sense out of the silence.
Are the heavens truly silent?
I think that perception depends, in large part, on us.
Take John 14:18 for example. Here,
the Lord says “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” When read in the original Greek,
“comfortless” is actually (ὀρφανούς), which literally means bereft, orphaned, little
esteemed, neglected, obliged to wander about in obscurity and darkness
(http://bible.cc/john/14-18.htm) Furthermore,
those who take the Sacrament prayer seriously will note they are promised “that
they may always have his Spirit to be with them” (Moroni 4:3; emphasis
mine). To me, “always” means “At all
times; For all time; At any time” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/always).
Then again, we’re told in D&C 1:31–33 that the “Spirit shall not
always strive with man”.
So, how do we reconcile “always” with “not always”?
Pres. Henry B. Eyring once said:
“You
have the right and the obligation to choose for yourselves. You can search the
scriptures or not. You can choose to work hard enough, to ponder, and to obey
His commandments, so that the Holy Ghost can be your companion. Then you will
come to know the Savior better and better and your heart will swell with love
for Him, or you can choose to delay. You can choose to drift, deciding past
efforts will be enough.
We
are promised that if we always remember Him and keep His commandments we will
have His Spirit to be with us. That light to our feet will grow dim if we
choose to delay or to drift” (“Always”, BYU Fireside, Jan. 3, 1999; http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=357).
Six Barriers
That May Interfere with Your Ability to Receive Answers to Prayers
Sometimes, the reason or reasons why we can’t discern the will of the Lord in
prayer is our own fault.
There are legitimate barriers that might interfere with our ability to receive
personal revelation. Here’s a brief
summary (all based on LaNae Valentine’s BYU Devotional, “Discerning the Will of
the Lord for Me”, June 29, 2004; http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1336):
1. We haven’t “studied it out in our mind”.
Sometimes, we
expect the Lord to do all the work and reveal things to us that we haven’t
bothered to study out in our own minds beforehand. In addition to D&C 9:7-9, here’s another
example, given by Elder Merrill C. Oaks:
“Some years ago while I was
serving as a bishop of a Brigham Young University ward, a young woman came to
me for counsel concerning a marriage proposal. She really liked the young man
but was strongly committed to not taking a step as important as marriage
without receiving inspiration that it was right. She had been praying about
whether to marry him and had received no answer. I assured her that the Lord
would surely answer her prayers and that she should keep on praying.
The following Sunday she asked
to see me again. She felt she was receiving no answer. I interviewed her and
established that she was worthy. I again assured her that the Lord does hear
and answer prayers and that she should continue praying.
The young man was really
pressing her to make a decision. He loved her but felt she was stalling because
she probably did not love him. He was approaching the time he might terminate
the relationship. She was very concerned but felt she could not marry him
without an answer from the Lord. I was very troubled by this. I knew the Lord
answered prayers. I knew this young woman was worthy to receive answers to her
prayers. Why was she not receiving an answer?
The key came to me in a moment
of clear enlightenment. I told her she was expecting the Lord to completely
make the decision for her, but He would not do that. Even a decision as
important as marriage requires us to exercise our own agency...
Like Oliver Cowdery, she had
taken no thought except to keep asking the Lord. I told her she must exercise
her own agency by studying it out in her mind, making a tentative decision, and
then asking the Lord for a confirmation of her decision. . . .
[The young lady in this story
eventually] received her answer. She explained, . . . “I just began to feel
[more and more positive and] good about getting married, and I knew that my
prayers were being answered.” (Merrill C. Oaks, “How to Get an Answer,” New
Era, August 2001, 47)
2. We haven’t learned how to listen – we are more focused on the static and
noise of life, than waiting attentively for the still, small voice of the
Spirit to speak to us.
“We
each could ask ourselves: What could I turn off, turn down, or tune out in
order to hear the voice of the Spirit in my life? Am I doing anything in my
life that is offensive to the Spirit and preventing the Holy Ghost from being
my constant companion? Is there anything I could eliminate from my busy life so
that I would have more time to be still, to study scriptures, ponder, and pray?”
(Valentine)
3. We’re too
intent on wanting what we want.
Sometimes answers to prayers
are not recognized because we are too intent on wanting a confirmation of our
own desires. We fail to see that the Lord would have us do something else. In
some cases the answers require us to stretch and grow and to leave the comfort
of what is familiar to us. At other times we may want to move forward or act
when the answer is to wait. Often waiting can be as difficult and require as
much faith as acting. When we seek the will of the Lord, we must be willing to
be obedient to it. Ideally, we should go
to the Lord with a humble spirit and ask Him to write His will upon our hearts,
rather than go to Him determined to carry out our own will. Elder Henry B.
Eyring said, ‘I have had prayers answered. Those answers were most clear when
what I wanted was silenced by an overpowering need to know what God wanted. It
is then that the answer from a loving Heavenly Father can be spoken to the mind
by the still, small voice and can be written on the heart’ (Henry B. Eyring,
“Write upon My Heart,” Ensign, November 2000, 86).
How submissive am I to the will
of the Lord in my life right now? How often do I try to counsel the Lord,
rather than take counsel from Him? (see Jacob 4:10)” (Valentine).
4. Our hearts are not prepared to receive His answers – mainly because we
fear what the answer might be, or because sin blocks our ability to adequately
receive the Lord’s signals.
“As we go through life, we
ofttimes build a rock wall between ourselves and heaven. This wall is built by
our unrepented sins. For example, in our wall there may be stones of many
different sizes and shapes. There could be stones because we have been unkind
to someone. Criticism of leaders or teachers may add another stone. A lack of
forgiveness may add another. Vulgar thoughts and actions may add some rather
large stones in this wall.” (H. Burke Peterson, “Prayer—Try Again,” Ensign,
June 1981, 73).
“In spite of the wall we build
in front of us, when we cry out, the Lord in His mercy still sends His messages
from heaven; but instead of being able to penetrate our heart, they hit the
wall that we have built up and bounce off. When His messages don’t penetrate so
easily, we say, “He doesn’t hear,” or “He doesn’t answer.” It is our challenge
and responsibility to destroy this wall, to repent and cleanse ourselves so
that we can be in tune with the Spirit. Revelation is the reward of repentance,
obedience, and righteousness.
Is there a sin or habit in my
life for which I need to repent? Is there anyone in my life that I need to
forgive?” (Valentine)
5. We lack faith or confidence in Heavenly Father – we don’t have a
testimony that He loves us, and wants what’s best for us.
“Often this lack
of faith is manifested by a lack of confidence in ourselves and in our ability
to get answers. We struggle with feelings of unworthiness and do not feel that
we are important to the Lord. We might think that others can approach the Lord
and receive instruction from Him, but we cannot. The truth is we can build our
faith by knowing that God lives, that He knows us, that He loves us, and that
He has a plan for us” (Valentine).
President Benson
stated, “Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to
the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his
face is to us” (Ezra Taft Benson, “Jesus Christ—Gifts and Expectations,”
Speeches of the Year [Provo: BYU, 1974], 313). Perhaps when we pray, we can
picture Him as a loving, kind, wise, understanding Father who wants us to
succeed. The Savior teaches of the pure love our Heavenly Father has for us,
“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a
stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? (Luke
11:11).
“When answers . .
. don’t seem to come” or they don’t come in the way we expect, we can remember
that when we explain a problem and a
proposed solution [or come to Him with a decision we have made], sometimes He answers yes, sometimes no.
Often He withholds an answer, not for lack of concern, but because He loves
us—perfectly. He wants us to apply truths He has given us. For us to grow, we
need to trust in our ability to make correct decisions. We need to do what we
feel is right. In time, He will answer. He will not fail us” (Elder Richard
G. Scott, “Learning to Recognize Answers to Prayer,” Ensign, November 1989,
30–31; emphasis in original).
6. We don’t recognize answers when they come.
“Sometimes we’ve already
received the answer, and we don’t realize it. In Section 6 of the Doctrine and
Covenants, the Lord had to remind Oliver Cowdery that he had already received
many answers concerning the veracity of the Church and the course he was to
take. To teach Oliver, the Lord said:
‘Behold, thou knowest that thou
has inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these
things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of
truth. . . .
Did I not speak peace to your
mind concerning the matter?’ [D&C 6: 15, 23]
If we feel that our prayers are
not being answered, we, like Oliver, may need to review the scriptures about
how God speaks to us.
Ask yourself: Is there evidence
in my life that Heavenly Father has already answered me concerning a given
issue or problem? Do I pay attention to the Lord when He whispers to me on
seemingly insignificant things? Do I write down and act on impressions and
promptings from the Lord?” (Valentine)
But Even Then...
However,
sometimes, we have studied an issue out in our mind. We have learned how to listen. We're not too intent on wanting what we
want. Our hearts are prepared to
receive His answers. And we have faith
or confidence in Heavenly Father.
And
still...nothing. No answers are forthcoming.
Could the silence
actually be an answer from the Lord?
Yes.
Stay tuned…
