God, Your Silence In My Struggle Is Not Welcome...

Psalm 22:2

"Oh my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest"

Yes, I said it. The thing we all want to say. I just said it politely and I'll say it again. God, your silence in the midst of my struggle is NOT welcome. I welcome EVERYTHING about you, including the struggles you allow into my life. But God, this Silence is the one thing that I cannot take from you.


The crazy thing about my saying this today, is so many of you all feel like I have things together. That things are always smooth or for the most part smooth in Ana's world. But please don't get it twisted. Ana knows how things work. Ana knows how to find the scripture that is going to help me through so much. Ana is normally VERY strong. But Ana has struggles too.


Ana has trials that hit her also. And Ana also has flesh to fight too. And because of that, Ana has times where she breaks and has to cry too and be frustrated and disappointed and have to ask God Why. Every believer goes through things. And if you have found one that doesn't seem to go through something, you are only seeing the outside. We all go through and we all have times.


So yes, I wanted to make sure I said that right off the bat at the top of the post. I needed to get it off my chest. I know that in the process of typing up this post, God will tell me exactly what we all need to hear. I say We because I'm sure that it's not just me feeling this way today. God will tell us exactly where we may be wrong. Even if we don't want to hear that we are wrong. He will tell us exactly where He is. Because I know He is in the midst. Remember? He is in the boat, with me, just taking a nap.


Yes family, after I posted that item yesterday, more things fell INTO my boat that were not supposed to be there and I had that moment. I had The Break. Remember, I'm human too. I have flesh to fight. I hope knowing that about me gives you the courage to say, If Ana Can Do This Walk and Sometimes She Breaks, Then I Can Do This Walk Too.


Now, didn't I tell you that God would give me (us) answers in the midst of typing today's post?


Mistake number one: Made by us, not Jesus. God is only silent because we allowed the world and those cares and those distractions and the water (issues of life) that got in our boats, along with the rough seas of life to get so loud that we couldn't hear Him speaking to our heart anymore. Our heart was now consumed by fears, worries, disappointments and stresses and it pushed Jesus out.


Yes, sometimes life gets so crazy and things start popping off everywhere around us and our boat is filling so quickly with the trials of life that we don't notice that Jesus had woken up from his nap on the stern and He has been trying to tell us what to do. Jesus is a gentleman. He isn't going to yell at us to get our attention. We are the ones that have to slow down enough to hear Him. But we have gotten so wrapped up in the stress and so distracted by the things that popped off around us and the worries and pains that it brought on and the fact that we broke when our little boat filled up to an uncomfortable level, that we could not hear Jesus speaking to us in our hearts or in our spirit.


Our mistake number two was, when we could not HEAR Him speaking in our hearts, what did we do? Sulked. We stayed stuck in The City of Worry. We stayed stuck in Woe is Me Park. We stayed stuck in Nobody Understands Me Lane. What we needed to do was go to the physical place where we KNOW that He is. He is in the Word. He is in your Bible. He is right there, in your house, in the midst of our struggle. Let me say that for myself to remind myself. He is in my bible. He is right there, in my house, in the midst of my struggle.


So if it was so simple, why didn't we go there already? Lets be real people. When things are popping off east and west, north and south and in and out, the LAST thing you want to do is read ANYTHING. You can barely sit down without breaking out in tears or some kind of emotional fit with your stressed out self. So reading anything is the last thing on your list.


Then you are exactly here. Then you are where you did not plan to be. Stuck. Wondering why God has been silent. He isn't silent. He is waiting for us to shut up and shut the world out long enough for Him to speak AND we can hear Him.


Here are some scriptures that we can ALL apply to our lives to get this "silence" to start to reveal where God has been while we have been struggling.

Isaiah 55:10-13 NLT

10“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. 11It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. 12You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands! 13Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.”

Remember family, His Word is the seed. But if you don't plant it, how can it produce fruit? If instead you are planting seeds of worry, stress, anxiety, you will get the fruit that those bring. Bad health, bad emotional state, and a dying spirit.

Here is another scripture to help us all.

Psalm 62:5-8 NLT

5Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. 6Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

I pray that we all get to the point where we are looking for Him alone. When we decide that He is our true refuge, and our true salvation, then we know we are all walking together in a like minded fashion. For while job pay the bills, marriage gives us companionship, children give us someone to love, and friends give us support, No One can give us the love and peace that God can when all those other things disappoint or hurt us or fail us in some way. Lets all get back to telling that storm "Be Still" just like Jesus did on the boat. And get back to focusing on Him, no matter how hard it seems to be.

I Love You All! Be Blessed!