when you don’t see the miracle
Silence is hard. Especially when we pray and don’t hear God’s response. This Sunday, we read in Matthew of a mother yelling out to Jesus asking Him to heal her daughter tormented by a demon and He doesn’t answer her…
"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon." But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her. (Matthew 15:22-23)
This moment of God’s silence, which for her probably felt like an eternity, reminds me of (in my opinion) the most powerful day of the liturgical year—Holy Saturday. Below is a piece written for Holy Week, but is worth a second look in light of today’s reading.
When we settle into Scripture, we are blessed with the gift of watching God's providence and love for His people unfold as the divine mystery that it is. We enter into the stories and root for our brothers and sisters who line the pages of Scripture. When Moses is tired and the Israelites feel uncertain, we subconsciously cheer them on; we know the end of the story, we know God is with them!
Similarly, when we read the Gospels, we anticipate the miracles of Jesus. When we read a sick person is being brought to Him, we anticipate their healing. When we read about someone with a demon, we know Jesus will give the proverbial one, two punch, and that demon will be sent back to the depths from which it had crawled. Because of these stories of real people who experienced real miracles, we read Scripture with the confidence of God's sovereign power, His love for us, and His faithfulness in all things. Throughout the entire story of salvation history, God shows up, all day, every day, in a mighty, albeit mysterious, way.
I won't speak for you, but there have been seasons in my life where I lost this confidence as I waded through the details of my day to day. I know God warned Noah about the flood and dropped manna from heaven to feed the hungry Israelites. I know Jesus turned water into wine and restored sight to the blind man, but sometimes I struggle to believe that He shows up in my life every day because I don’t see His hand—and worse, because He allows me to suffer. I struggle to believe He is just as concerned with me as He was for Abraham or the woman at the well. In this doubt, the evil one slips into my thoughts, and I allow him to alter my perspective.
When I allow the enemy to slip into my weakness, he uses his pathetic voice. With every miracle unseen, in the grief of my suffering, he tempts me to hear a different narrative than God's undying love for me. The devil turns up the volume of my insecurities and weaknesses, and they roar inside my head. The beautiful words Jesus whispers into my heart — that I am His beloved, that He died for me, that I was created with a purpose, that I am beautiful, that I am loved, that I am His, and He is mine— get lost in the noise of my self-pity and I doubt...
I doubt that He is there. I doubt that He desires the best for me. I doubt that I am worth His effort...
Soon, all that I can hear as I am wading through my day-to-day is that I am alone. That I am forgotten. That I have been betrayed. That I have been left behind. That I am unloved because I am unworthy.
Ever felt this way? Do your children struggle with this? Your spouse?
It is easy for these words to find confirmation when we experience suffering and we don't see God's hand right away. When we reach for the hem of Christ's garment, and our body is not immediately healed. When the storm rages around us but the sea and sky have not yet been rebuked. When our toes touch the water of the Red Sea, but it doesn't seem to part. When we offer our heart as a sacrifice to the Lord, and He doesn't provide us a ram in its place…
The next time you are crying out to the Lord and His silence shakes your faith, I invite you to open Psalm 118.
Psalm 118 is known as the Easter Psalm. It is the final psalm in the "Egyptian Hallel." In Matthew 26:30 we read that Jesus and the Apostles finish a hymn before they depart for the Mount of Olives where He prayed at the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest. The hymn they sang was most likely the Egyptian Hallel traditionally sang at Passover. Psalm 118 is a beautiful song of praise, a song of victory, a song of triumph!
When we read this psalm on the other side of the Resurrection, its words challenge us to understand God’s perceived silence—and suffering—through a new lens.
Psalm 118:24 reads, This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
My heart tears open when I realized that Jesus prayed these words just hours before He started His Passion….
Hours before a betrayal of a brother, before He is mocked at and spat upon before His flesh is torn open by leather whips, before He is condemned to death for crimes He was not guilty of, before iron nails tore through His hands and feet, before His scalp bled from the thorns pressed into His flesh, before He looked through weary and blood-stained eyes upon His broken-hearted mother... Before He died, He sang this prayer in perfect sincerity, This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
With great difficulty, His disciples watched his Passion. And, to their horror, there was no final hour reprieve. Christ carried His cross until He was nailed to it — until He died on it. It looked as though the evil one had won...No miracle yet to be seen...
But, as Dr. Peter Kreeft wrote in his book Making Sense of Out Suffering, "Satan's conclusion was God's premise, Satan's end was God's means." Just because we didn't see the miracle in the moment doesn't mean God isn’t working. As Christ suffered, our heavenly Father was moving heaven and earth, and nothing would ever be the same again. As a result, earthly suffering was given power to transform and redeem and the gift of salvation is offered to every human person. It was precisely when we didn't see the miracle that God worked in the mightiest of ways.
Whenever my confidence wavers and I wonder if God is there, I pray for the gift of faith. I open my Bible and my heart to Psalm 118 to remind myself of Christ's prayer just hours before His passion. Then, I offer Him my suffering and rejoice in all His glorious works that I don't yet see.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, in response to Christ’s silence, the woman reacts with humility and faith. Today, let us pray to have the same response. Use this week’s Pray, Grow, and Serve to have a conversation with your child about suffering and what we perceive as God’s silence.
