Thought for the Day: God's Silence, Your Blessing
Tuesday, June 16th, 2015 10:00am

Have you ever wondered why God is silent about certain things in your life?  You know God is planning something big and important, but no matter how much you beg and plead, He just never seems willing to tell you about anything that's coming.  Why is that?  Why would God withhold so much information from us?  What purpose is there in doing that?  Is He being mean, or is there a much larger purpose behind why God chooses to tell us one thing, but withhold so much more?  Believe it or not, the answers are actually quite simple, and extremely logical.  To begin with, we should first look at where this particular trial in our lives typically begins.

It has been, and still is, a long held practice among Christians to cry out to God, and ask, "Why won't you tell me more!?" in regards to many things in one's life, such as one's future trials, blessings, and so much more.  Even I've argued that point many a time with God crying, "Why won't you tell me what I need to do or need to buy or who I need to talk to?" and so on.  This had gone on and on in my life for quite some time until one day when God chose to ask me a question in return during one of my moments of "whining intercession".  (ps, I'm sure most of you know what that is as you've done it too. :P)

He asked me, "Does a military commander tell the enemy what he is about to do?"  I immediately replied, "No!  Absolutely not!  That'd be utterly foolish!"  This was followed by a pregnant pause, and then an epiphany shortly after.  "Ohhhhhhhhh!" I replied, realizing what God was asking.  That one simple question at that moment in my life answered all my questions about why He was being so unbelievably silent about certain key things in my life.  I admit that sometimes God is silent in order to teach us patience and trust.  But sometimes He is silent because He knows that if we were to know, then Satan would know as well, and that's never a good thing.  This is because God is always looking for ways to keep the enemy on his heals, and the more the enemy knows, the more effectively he's able to fight against God.

We can take a look at the bible for many numerous examples of this, when the enemy was given key information that, had he not been given it, would have sent history in an entirely different direction.  The first example is with Abraham.  As soon as God said "This land will be yours," Satan immediately went to work trying to thwart the plan of God by filling it with giants and evil men who would seek and be used to stop the children of Israel from taking possession of everything God had given them.  Or what about Judah?  As soon as God said the Messiah would come from that one clan, Satan went to work trying to destroy, or at the very least thwart, the plans of God through Judah.

Same thing happened when King David was given his revelations.  Satan tried his best to corrupt and prevent the line of David from bringing about the Messiah.  God also likes to trick Satan into fulfilling His purposes.  Take a look at the story of Job.  Did God tell him "Look what I'm about to do with my loyal servant!"  No, God tricked Satan into attacking Job and bringing him down to the ash pit, only to eventually exalt him twice as high as before and make his story a blessing and a lesson for all the ages.  But if Satan had known that at the time, would he have participated in anything surrounding that event?  Nope.

God didn't send Satan to hurt Job.  God didn't have to.  He simply bragged about His servant and Satan, in his hatred and jealousy, did the job for Him.  Now that might seem odd, but remember this.  God is wiser than us, wiser than the angels and wiser than anyone in existence.  So just because God isn't telling you what He is about to do doesn't mean you don't need to know.  It may mean that God is simply keeping the enemy in the dark so that he can't hurt you or thwart God's plan.  I admit that sometimes God keeps us in the dark to prevent us from meddling in what He's about to do as a way to ensure that His will is always done, even if it's not our own.  But there's also another component to this.  We meddle, not so much because we have free will and are not satisfied with what God wants.  We do it because Satan tricks us into trying to thwart God's will.  Not that we want to do it intentionally, but instead we're foolishly lured into doing the Devil's bidding.
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Now do you see why God keeps us in the dark?  Because one way or another, if WE know, Satan will know, and if he knows, he then has in his possession what is called "Actionable Information", a military term meaning information that one can act upon or make decisions with.  So if he has that information, he can then use that to fight against God.  It's not that he'd win necessarily.  But why make it any harder for God than is absolutely necessary, right?  So remember this.  If God doesn't tell you certain things you want to know, it's not because He doesn't want you to know them.  It's because, as history has proven, allowing the enemy to know what His plans are is actually detrimental to you.  So in a sense, by keeping you in the dark, God is ultimately protecting you from the full measure of Satan's evil which, in turn, becomes a blessing of protection and safety because, what the enemy doesn't know, he can't use against you. :)