What does the Bible say about faith when God is silent?

“What does the Bible say about faith when God is silent?”

Almost everyone knows this feeling. You have done everything you could. You wait for something to change — and nothing changes. And a thought creeps in: no one is listening.

The Bible answers this simply: what we see is not the whole picture. A metal ball looks perfectly smooth. But look at it through a strong microscope and you will see mountains and deep valleys on its surface. The ball has not changed. All that changed is what you were looking through.

There is a story in the Bible about this. Three kings were leading their armies across a desert, and after seven days they ran out of water. One king immediately said: that's it, we are going to die. He looked at the sand and saw only sand. But another king, Jehoshaphat, decided to ask God, and he went to Elisha — a man through whom God spoke to people.

The answer was strange: dig ditches in this dry valley. There will be no rain and no wind, but the ditches will fill with water (2 Kings 3:16–17).

There was not a single cloud in the sky. But they dug. And then they went to sleep. In the morning the water came and filled everything they had dug (2 Kings 3:20).

A ditch does not make water. A ditch prepares a place for it. The men did what was in their power, and God did the rest.

THE GOOD NEWS:
If you cannot see God working, that does not mean He is not working. When Jesus was executed on the cross, it looked to everyone as if it was over and there was no hope left. Yet that was the very moment God was saving people. Jesus died for our sins and rose again on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). That is why God can forgive anyone, whatever their past has been, and give them a new life.

Maybe your desert right now is illness, debt, loneliness, or a broken family. Start simply: tell God in your own words that it is hard and that you cannot manage on your own. Ask Him for help and put your trust in Jesus Christ. You don't need to wait for rain to start digging.