5 Ways to Maintain Hope When God Feels Silent

Even in the middle of summer, our souls can experience a winter when God seems far and quiet.

One of my winters settled deep in summer. While the long days beckoned me to plan adventures and hit amusement parks with my three boys, I couldn’t even take a walk; held back by physical limitations, I did NOT plan. It was during that time that unexpected relational pain broke open. This was not the carefree summer I planned! Confused and powerless to speed up healing in either of these painful places, I could only be still. And I admit, at first, that didn’t feel like enough, as my journal absorbed my hard-pressed pen venting, and my Bible’s pages soaked up my tears.

We want to speed through these places that hurt, moving on to the good seasons we’ve envisioned. If we could share a cup of tea, I know you’d have your list of unexpected hardships that surfaced uninvited. Inside these painful chapters, not knowing what’s next tests our faith and pulls at our souls.

But what if hope waits inside these seasons, and we’d rather skip?

In her book Growing Slow, Jennifer Dukes Lee offers that our winters can offer hope, even as we long for them to end. She writes, “When the land is quiet, the days are short and the nights unbearably long, something remarkable is happening in invisible places” (Growing Slow, p. 181).

What if we knew that? In our waiting, something remarkable is happening. Could we still hold onto our hope then, even in our darkest places?

In Lamentations, we are promised that the Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him (Lamentations 3:25 ESV).

Maybe that sounds trite but bear with me. There’s more here.

This is not the kind of waiting where we sit around binging shows and scrolling (anyone else?) until God does something. In this verse, “wait” is qāvâ in Hebrew, which means to look for, hope, and expect. The literal translation is to twist, stretch, and bind together.

This promise, then, says that He is good to those who “twist and stretch and bind themselves to” Him IN the waiting.

In our waiting seasons, we can actively bind ourselves to Him. This isn’t passive.

Waiting is active.

In my winter, I remember understanding that I could shrink from Him or turn to Him. I’d be angry in either case, and the pain would be there either way. So why not take my anger and confusion to Him? In our questions and unrest, we can still tie ourselves to Him. We can cry out and ask Him to meet us deep in our bones.

Even when He hasn’t answered the way we wish, even when it feels like He’s quiet, even when we’re desperate for an end to this unwanted chapter, we can wait with Him.

What can that look like? How can we find God when He feels far away? Here are five ways to hold onto hope even in our waiting seasons:

1. DWELL in peace.

“My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:18).

We may not want to, but even in our hard places, we can still sit with Him. It’s kind of this mystery that’s hard to imagine – even in our pain and waiting, we can know rest and quiet. But it’s true. When we choose to dwell with Him, we can actually abide in peace. This verse from Isaiah gives us this calming reassurance that we are held secure. God promises to guard our hearts and minds. In our humanity, we cannot conjure this kind of peace on our own – this kind of peace is found only in truly dwelling with Him. We are held, even in the hardest circumstances.

2. Be in His presence.

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

We can forget that when we choose Jesus as our Lord, we are gifted the Holy Spirit in our very innermost being. When confusion and anxiety hit, we can also forget that we have access to Him at any time, in any place. That His presence is a promise. And a gift. Many times, when I sought answers, I didn’t get the answers I had hoped for, but I still felt His presence with me. His divine presence is a balm that covers our uncertainty. In the middle of your winter season, ask Him to show you where He is. Pray that He makes Himself known to you. Not knowing what’s next is hard, but being in His presence brings comfort to our souls in the waiting. He is there, beside us, every time.

3. Remember what He has done.

“I will remember the days of old; I meditate on all your works; I muse on the work of your hands” (Psalm 143:5).

Commentaries differ on how long King Saul sought to kill king-to-be David. Some estimate that David ran for his life for fourteen years. In this Psalm, David is pleading with God for relief from his life on the run – but then, here in this verse, he remembers what he has seen God already do. In our questioning, we, too, can choose to remember what He has already done. In Jeremiah 30:2, God tells Jeremiah to record what He has said so the people will remember. He knows we humans are forgetful people. Let’s remember for ourselves. Let’s read the pages of our Bibles and write down what He has done in our own lives. And then let’s stand on and hold up the ways He has delivered us before while we wait for what’s next.

4. Notice Him around you.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

In our waiting, we can overlook the declarations of His unfailing glory that sit right outside our front doors and right above our bent-down heads. The simple discipline of noticing His glory all around us each day re-centers our hearts. Look at the sunrise or the stars. Take note of the changing seasons. Creation reminds us that our God is faithful – every day, He raises the sun. In our hardest moments, it can feel impossible to imagine that our pain will lessen. But as we wait, we can join Him where we see Him and allow His glory to hold us.

5. Surrender to His plans.

“Be still in the presence of the LORD, and wait patiently for him to act” (Psalm 37:7a).

Surrender is hard. Full disclosure, “surrender” is my word for this year, and I was dreading it. But I’m learning that when I surrender something, I feel lighter. When we’re carrying our heavy loads, holding onto hard things feels like we’re at least doing something. But thinking about how hard it is to surrender often takes more space in my mind and heart than actually surrendering it! When we choose to be still in His presence and wait patiently for Him to act, that is surrender.

When we are in a waiting season, when we don’t understand what’s to come, let us know that our waiting can be active. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him. Whose souls seek Him? In the waiting, we can find Him.

“…blessed are all those who wait for Him” (Isaiah 30:18).