1 Samuel 26:8
“God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!” Abishai whispered to David. “Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t need to strike twice!”
How can we know that we are walking in the will of God?
There are times in the Bible, as well as in our own lives, when God chooses to intervene in a manner that leaves no ambiguity. When God appears in the burning bush and tells us clearly where we are to go and what we are to do when we arrive, we go there, and we do it.
There are other times where God chooses silence.
We can be sure that His silence is not a result of His absence, for we serve an omnipresent God. In every moment, He stoops to look down on heaven and earth. He is attentive to our goings-on, even noticing when a single hair falls from our head and accounting for its replacement.
Knowing that God cares about events as seemingly insignificant as our hair loss and growth, how can we, in moments of true importance, even those that have eternal consequences, ascertain the will of God, especially when He has chosen silence as His guidance?
David experienced such a moment as he hid in a cave, fleeing from Saul, who sought to kill Him, alongside anyone with whom he associated.
He had experienced the “burning bush” moment. He had received the promise and provision of God when, like Abraham, he was commanded to “go to a land which I will show you,” in that he would be the king of Israel.
This command had seemingly cost everything as he and his companions hid in a cave, fleeing the wrath of Saul.
The kingdom had already been “torn away” and given to David, yet Saul, willing to kill in his attempt to grasp something which was no longer his, pursued David, day and night.
This pursuit led to one of those moments of silent instruction from the Lord, and David’s handling of the situation instructs us, throughout the ages, as to what we should do when we reach the same point on the road of God’s calling.
Accepting the silence
We live in a time where silence must be sought.
Whereas, throughout history, quiet stillness was the natural state you inhabited, it has now become something you must vacation to obtain.
Our days are so inundated with alarms and notifications, news alerts and public announcements, advertisements and warnings that a state of noise has become our dwelling place.
If you don’t believe me, set a timer and sit in silence for 30 minutes.
Like a fish out of water, you will wriggle and wraith as you are suddenly thrust into an environment so completely foreign to you that you feel its very air is unbreathable.
Far from making the correct use of the silence of God… we don’t even know how to tolerate it!
If God has chosen silence as His answer, and we have refused to accept silence… We will inevitably seek our answer from a source other than God.
That source may be the opinions of friends and family, or even worse, those of a stranger. More recently, it may be technology. We may speak to a “language model”, whose sole design is that of an algorithm meant to patronize and tell you exactly what you want to hear…
Worst of all, we might take the very Word of God… abusing and preverting it into some kind of Ouija board in which we run our fingers along its pages with our eyes closed, praying to chance and luck that our finger might land on the answer we are looking for.
If we are to handle God’s silence correctly, we must first accept that silence is a method He uses and then, accept the fact that He is using it in this moment.
We must not run away.
Acting as a delegate
There was a king who had much to attend in his own kingdom. When news reached the king that a problem had arisen in a far-off land, the king sent a representative to resolve the problem.
This representative, traveling a great distance, was in no way able to communicate with the king.
In a sense, the representative was solely responsible for resolving the king's problem, in that there was no way, in the moment, to receive input from the king.
Yet, the representative, if he were to remain a representative, could not act in any way that pleased him…The source of his authority being that of delegation.
Just as a hammer can drive a nail only when endowed with the power of a man's hand, so we must consider ourselves when we serve as the True King’s representatives.
We are not the man who chooses when and in what manner the nails will be struck; we are the object that facilitates the striking.
Furthermore, a representative does not need constant communication with what he represents; otherwise, there would be no need for a representative at all!
To be clear: there is no need for a representative… We serve a God who is sufficient. By His power, and only His power, does this universe and all of its happenings exist. He does not require anything or anyone to accomplish His purposes. (If we are sent as a representative, it is grace, not necessity, which motivates God.)
What I am describing is an attitude of confidence that comes from knowing, actually knowing who and what you represent.
An attitude that can not be manufactured or bought, but one that is obtained only through the daily pursuit of knowing God.
For though men seek after many treasures in life, there is only one treasure that holds value. There is only one thing in which man can boast…” That he understands and knows Me”.
It is this esteem, this ascension, this appraisal, which we should focus the whole of our attention and pursuit in life.
It is only when we have determined that this will be the direction of our lives that God can use us as a representative.
If we put our hope in an answer from God, we will be dejected when He chooses to withhold answers… But those who put their hope in god Himself “will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.”
They will know what to do, not because He has given them every single answer, but because they know Him. They know what He is like, and how He thinks, and how He feels… They know how He would handle a situation… so they handle it in the same manner! They know what He would say… so they say it! They know what He would do… so, to the best of their ability, they go about doing that!
They make it their goal to stand at the feet of God, beholding Him, and in doing so, become more and more like Him.
God said about David: “I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”
David was God’s representative.
Let our goal be to have the same thing said of us…
“O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee;
For Thou, in Thy atonement, didst give Thyself for me;
I own no other Master, my heart shall be Thy throne;
My life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.”