When God is Silent (and the Darkness does not Lift)

Don’t debate with me, please, on the theological accuracy of my words.
Don’t tell me “God is never silent. He has spoken in His Word & it is always available.”
I will, instead, point to the intensity for me of what I perceive as reality.
God is silent.

I know His Word says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” That He has ‘spoken to you in these last days in the person of my Son’”.
I know ultimately He is not silent, by logical definition.
But to my ears, and to my heart, I sometimes hear silence.

Can you instead help reason inform my heart?

Describe for me what you see in my life that displays His voice, His grace.
Demonstrate to me His words (in your words) of love, encouragement, and hope.
Point me to, as well, His grace in your life, gently testing the waters to see how ready I am to listen, to hear and take in, this illustration of God’s presence and power.
Will you be patient, but persistent?

My mind is not what doubts God’s voice.
(So don’t argue me into hearing/acknowledging His voice. I fully know the facts.)
It is my heart, feeble, weak, and influenced by the circumstances I live in, that needs persuading.
Help me hear the steady, faithful heartbeat of God that pulsates with every pain I bear, every weary step I take, every disappointing turn of events, every whispered prayer that seems unanswered.
Help me see how faith in Him can courageously search for His voice, pursue Him in His Word, identify Him in everyday life….
Remind me gently that He is there, and that in this ‘silence’ He may wisely be allowing my longing for and dependence on Him to grow, that my dependence on myself would lessen.

When God is silent….speak up.
Live out God’s love to me.
You may be the megaphone through which once again I hear His voice.

“And we urge you brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.”  I Thess 5:14