The Quiet Is Not An Absence

There was a stretch, years ago, when God was noisy about your marriage.

A sermon that landed on exactly the thing. A verse that turned up twice in a week. A conversation with somebody who could not have known what she was saying.

And then it went quiet. Not suddenly. Over about two years, the way weather changes.

And now there is nothing. No verse arriving, no sense of anything moving, no impression at all. And you have drawn the obvious conclusion, which is that He has left the subject.

Not left you. You would be careful to say that, and you would mean it. But the marriage specifically. That He has taken His attention off that one part of your life and put it somewhere more promising.

The promise is still standing and the silence has not touched it, so that conclusion is very reasonable and it is not true, and I want to spend the next few minutes on why.

Even there

There is a line in Psalm 139 that runs through every place a person might end up, and the phrase I want is the one that keeps repeating.

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there (Psalm 139:8, King James Version)

Thou art there. Twice, in one verse, at the two extreme ends of anything.

And in the verses that follow, the psalm goes to the far side of the sea and into the darkness, and the answer at each stop is the same. Even there.

What that verse is doing is removing location as a variable. Wherever a person gets to, the answer is the same and it does not depend on how the place feels.

You are somewhere the psalm has already covered, and Psalm 139 has never once made the quality of a place the test of whether He is in it. Psalm 139:8 puts thou art there at both extremes and everywhere between, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that hold for a quiet house.

That includes a marriage that has gone silent. Even there is not a phrase with exceptions in it.

You have never once been somewhere He is not, and the word has never let an absence of signal stand for an absence of God. The passage removes location as a variable entirely, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in a quiet house on an ordinary Tuesday.

What the noisy season actually was

Let me say something about the loud years, because they have become the standard and they were never one.

Those seasons happen. They are real and they are good and nobody should apologize for having had one. But they are not the baseline of a life with God and they never have been.

Most of scripture happens quietly. Whole decades pass between chapters. The people we read about spent the vast majority of their lives without a sermon landing on exactly the thing, and the arrangement did not lapse during those years.

And here is the part worth hearing. A noisy season is often what happens when somebody needs steering, and a quiet season is often what happens when they are already on the road.

I am not going to tell you that is definitely what your quiet is. I do not know. But it is at least as likely as the reading you have settled on, and you have not given it one minute of consideration.

You are permitted to hold a quieter reading of the quiet, and no verse has ever once made noise the measure of His attention. Psalm 139:8 answers every location with the same two words, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a woman consider a possibility she has not allowed herself.

You made a promise in front of somebody who does not withdraw from subjects, and the covenant has never once needed a signal to remain in force. It is written that even in the furthest place, thou art there, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present where nothing at all is happening.

One sentence, out loud, in the quiet

Here is the assignment and it is deliberately spoken into the silence rather than about it.

Say one sentence of prayer out loud about the marriage, in the room where the two of you actually live.

You are speaking into a place the psalm has already covered, and Psalm 139 has never once made an exception for a quiet one. Psalm 139:8 answers every location with thou art there at both ends of everything, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a living room where nothing has arrived for three years.

And say it into the quiet without asking the quiet to end. Something like: God, this quiet is not Your absence, and this marriage belongs to You.

Out loud, when he is not in the room. Do not ask for a sign. Do not ask for the noisy season back.

The point of the exercise is that a sentence gets said in a room where nothing appears to be happening, which is the exact thing the silence has been preventing.

You are able to speak into a quiet without requiring it to answer, and it has never once needed to answer for the speaking to be real. Psalm 139:8 puts Him in the place regardless of what the place is like, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a silent room while a woman says one sentence.