Why Is God Silent in My Life? 5 Simple but Surprising Reasons

Inside: Why is God silent when you most need to hear from Him, when you’re at your most desperate? The reasons will surprise and relieve you!

I legit loathe when people shout at me. As soon as someone starts shouting, I get selective deafness. I just can’t hear them anymore.

But do you know what I hate more than someone shouting at or around me? Being ignored when I’m talking to someone.

As if I’m not standing right before them saying something that matters. Like I don’t matter.

Isn’t this how you feel sometimes when you communicate with God? Like your desperate pleas plummet into an abyss where echoes don’t exist and sound goes to die.

I sure felt like this…for years.

And like me, you’ve probably cried from the depths of your soul, “Hey, God! I’m talking to you over here. Why won’t you say something?”

I sure did…for years.

And still, God stayed silent, ignoring every desperate, heartfelt prayer I hurled at him.

For years.

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Why Is God Silent When I Need Him Most?

It hurts when God seems silent, doesn’t it? The pain cuts deep and can make you feel ignored, unheard, and smaller than the mustard seed Jesus loved talking about.

It can make you feel like God doesn’t love you, not the way you thought He did.

Good news, though. God is never randomly silent. He generally has something to say about everything that affects you.

What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Luke 12:6-7 (NLT)

This is straight from Jesus’ mouth. So you have to wonder: if God cares about the number of hairs on your beautiful head, how can He not care about your actual problems? The same problems tearing your heart apart. The same ones you’ve begged Him to fix countless times.

The answer? It’s impossible. Our Almighty God of the universe can’t care about the minute, trivial details of your life while not giving a flip about your heartrending issues. So He must care.

The question then isn’t, why is God silent? The question is, why aren’t you hearing Him?

Why Is God Silent? 5 Reasons You’ve Overlooked

Now, God may seem silent to you. But in truth, God is not silent; He never is. The existence of the Bible is plain evidence of this fact. Through it, He always has something to say to you.

So let’s dive into 5 common reasons why God is silent—well, on mute—for you.

1. What Are You Asking For?

And how bold and free we then become in His presence, freely asking according to His will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.

1 John 5:14-15 (MSG)

It’s easy to miss the part about “according to His will.” You see, you need to ask yourself if what you’re praying for is in keeping with God’s will. Because you can’t reasonably ask God to give you something which blatantly flies in the face of His word, then turn around and expect Him to say yes.

God loves you too much to give you what goes against His will for you. Even if you think it would be the most amazing, most perfect thing in the history of the entire universe.

But how can you know His will so you can ask for it?

Well, mainly God wants you to live a godly life, which you do by submitting your will to Him.

This means no matter how badly you want something, you’re willing to let go of your desire for it because you want what God wants more.

Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.

Luke 22:42 (NLT)

Otherwise, you set up the thing you desire as an idol above God. And as we know from the first commandment, even if what you want isn’t technically ungodly, He’s not down with idols.

2. What Are You Doing Or Not Doing?

Have you ever had a strong prompting to do something? Like, you knew deep down in your gut it was what you should do?

Maybe you’ve had a strong feeling that you should start tithing, for instance. Or volunteer to serve in a community outreach project. Or even take what looks like a mad leap of faith in a new direction.

This spirit-deep prompting is often the Holy Spirit trying to guide you. And He probably won’t say something new until you stop ignoring Him.

Let’s take a practical example. Remember how God told Jonah to go to Nineveh in Jonah 1:2? And what did Jonah do? He not only ignored God; he also went in the exact opposite direction. Just because He didn’t want to go to Nineveh. Of course, you know how his act of defiance turned out.

Sitting in the fish’s belly, Jonah desperately cried out to God for deliverance and God mercifully made the fish spit him out.

And what was the next thing God said to Jonah? Yup, “Go to Nineveh.” Jonah’s drama didn’t change God’s mind at all.

What was true for Jonah is true for you. So here’s the question you need to answer: Have you been ignoring God’s prompting to do—or stop doing—something?

If so, then God will seem silent to you because He’s already given you marching orders you have yet to follow.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free printable download—The Hearing God Cheat Sheet. It gives you 6 guaranteed signs He’s speaking to you, so you can stop missing it.

3. What Are You Afraid Of?

There was Moses, minding his business in Midian, tending his father-in-law’s sheep. Suddenly, out of nowhere, God shows up in a burning bush and assigns him the epic job of leading the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land. 

This was the opportunity of a lifetime, one Moses had wanted 40 years before. So what did he say when God offered to make all his old dreams come true?

But Moses pleaded with the Lord, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.” Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”

Exodus 4:10-12 (NLT)

Throughout Exodus 3-4, Moses basically said on repeat, “You’ve got the wrong guy, Lord. I’m nobody. Also, Pharoah won’t listen to me. Also, what if the Israelites don’t believe me? Also, I hate public speaking!”

Lots of fear-based excuses from Moses, but can you blame him? This move would disrupt his life and thrust him into the limelight.

Here’s the thing though: None of Moses’ excuses changed God’s mind. Not one.

The same is true for you. So if you’ve been ignoring God’s solution to your problem because it may disrupt your life, take it from me—your excuses won’t change His mind any more than Moses’ excuses did.

4. What Are You Tuning Out?

Brace yourself, this one is gonna sting.

God may be speaking to you non-stop. But you may have muffled His voice through disobedience and sin.

I know…ouch! But you can only solve the problem if you face it. 

You sit in church, praise God, and take reams of notes throughout the sermon. But you glaze over the parts of the message that convict you of sin in your life.

“What sin?” you ask. Remember the Ten Commandments? Take your pick.

Murdering people with your words. Elevating someone or something above God. Involvement in sexual sin. Stealing time from your employer. Swearing up and down on God’s holy name.

Let’s look at King David, shall we?

You can read all about his relationship with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. His sin of lust for another man’s wife scaffolded into more sin—murder piled on top of lying, piled on top of adultery—which made David deaf to God.

This was David, the man after God’s own heart! We’re supposed to believe that God never tried convicting David of his sin directly the entire time he was in it? Seems highly improbable, right?

What’s more likely is that David put God on silent so he wouldn’t have to give up what made him feel good in the moment. And so he wouldn’t have to face his sin.

But our merciful God circumvented David’s deliberate muting by sending the prophet Nathan to open David’s eyes. Finally, the floodgates of David’s heart flew open and he finally faced what he had done.

Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just.

Psalm 51:4 (NLT)

Now, please don’t take this as me judging you. I sat in your exact spot in church for darn near a decade, acting like Sister Super-Christian while I lived with a man I wasn’t married to. The whole time, I was rolling around in my sin while I begged God to solve all my problems.

So hear me when I say, the sin you’re willfully indulging in may be the reason why God is silent in your life. It’s causing you to miss what He’s been trying to say to you. And it’s up to you to decide if you’ll keep letting your sin mute God.

Related: 6 Clear Signs God Is Speaking to You (And You’re Missing It)

5. Who Do You Need?

You’ve tried everything to solve your problems yourself, right? And when you couldn’t fix them on your own, you sought advice from others. Whether it was from people you know or through books and blogs, you left no stone unturned.

When those avenues failed—when desperation was choking you and you’d run out of ideas—you finally turned to God.

Let’s go back to Jonah to see this reason why God is silent in action. I mean, things don’t get more desperate than being alone in the middle of the ocean, facing death in a stinky fish’s belly, right?

This was when Jonah cried out to the Lord—when he had no other option but God. Some random boat full of brave sailors wasn’t about to sail by, somehow know he was in a fish’s belly, and stage a daring rescue.

Jonah’s one shot at making it out of there alive was God.

As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple.

Jonah 2:7 (NLT)

But wouldn’t it have been great if Jonah had turned to God first?

You see, it’s all well and good to cry out to Him when all else fails. But God may very well be waiting for you to need Him as your first choice instead of as a last resort.

As for Jonah, God could have stayed silent and left him to his doom. Instead, He graciously responded to Jonah’s prayer by having the fish vomit him onto the seashore.

Your Checklist for Understanding Why God Is Silent

I still physically cannot tolerate someone shouting at me. I just can’t. Even through a TV screen.

But these days, I don’t care if someone ignores me. You see, I know that the only One who matters always hears me and always answers my prayers.

Because as I now know—and as you know too—God is rarely ever actually silent. Turns out, you’re usually the one who isn’t listening to Him.

Of course, having been deaf to Him for so long, you may have trouble opening your ears to hear what God is saying to you. So how do you break the deafening silence now?

With these 5 reasons why God is silent, you can start turning up the volume on His voice in your life. But you’ll get there faster if you understand a few important truths about how God operates.

To get these truths, keep reading the next part of this series: 5 Stunning Truths for When God Is Silent in Your Life.

Before you go, get your FREE printable download to help conquer your confusion—The Essential Guide to Finding Clarity.

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