Facing God’s Silence

On July 16, 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat down to write a letter to a friend. In this letter, he wrestled with the absence of God. He did not wrestle in an armchair, sipping his coffee, but in a Nazi prison cell. His prayers for God’s intervention only resulted in a numbing silence. He reflected, “Before God, and with God, we live without God” (Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 479). His wrestling would cease, not with shouts of deliverance, but at the end of a noose. He was executed on April 9, 1945.

Some have claimed Bonhoeffer advocated a theology that says God is dead or non-existent. But that is not the case. Bonhoeffer’s reflections were pastoral. Why is God seemingly absent in our suffering? It seems like we are living in a world without God. Bonhoeffer insisted that despite appearances, in God’s silence and hiddenness we are with God and before God.

Bonhoeffer took comfort in Luther’s theology of the cross: “God can only be found in suffering and the cross” (Luther, The Roots of Reform, 100). When we feel the most alone and abandoned, God is present and near. This requires seeing all of life, especially suffering, through the reality of the cross. The only proper response to the seeming absence of God in suffering is to see life through the cross and walk by faith.

Life Seen through the Cross

Bonhoeffer recognized that we do everything we can to avoid suffering. Man-made religion tries to manipulate God so that he will use his power to eliminate suffering. This is true today in the deviant gospel that claims the children of God should never experience deprivation and grief.

Last week, I sat down with someone entrenched in a false prosperity gospel. I explained how true Christianity expects suffering in this life. He responded, “I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread” (Ps. 37:25). But what happens when the cancer strikes or the paycheck fails to meet our needs? What happens when the righteous person feels forsaken? The prosperity gospel ultimately fails at both a theological and practical level. Like everyone else, anyone who believes this false gospel faces the slow decline of health in old age and ends up on a deathbed.

The prosperity gospel is an over-realized eschatology, offering now what can only be fully experienced in heaven. Christians should expect trouble and suffering in this life (John 16:33). Bonhoeffer could look at his prison cell and the global suffering and chaos of World War II and see it in light of the cross of Christ. Suffering is the pathway to future glory. The call to follow Christ is a call to come and die. Because Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” we also expect overwhelming moments when we feel forsaken (Matt. 27:46). In those moments, though, we are not forsaken but living with God and before God.

Walk by Faith

This means Christians walk by faith and not by sight. Faith is the recognition that even though it seems we are without God in the world, he is present and active. With our eyes, we see countless sorrows (Rom. 8:35–36). But the eyes of faith see the truths of the gospel even in sorrow. Through faith, we see that in our suffering, Jesus is “at the right hand of God . . . interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34; Acts 7:56).

This perspective is the nature of saving faith. We live by faith and not by what our eyes see or the suffering we experience. In the Old Testament, it sometimes seems like life is presented in simple terms. We will prosper if we are righteous (Deut. 28:1–14). We will be cursed if we do not obey (Deut. 28:15–24). But these promises were made to the nation of Israel under the Old Covenant.

Individuals in the Old Testament faced moments of deep crisis. Righteous people often suffered calamity. When Job faced severe suffering, God felt absent. When Joseph faced the pit or the prison, he felt forsaken. God was silent. These types of suffering sparked Habakkuk’s complaint against God. The righteous were oppressed by destruction and evil (Hab. 1:1–3). God responds that he will act but commands Habakkuk to wait (Hab. 2:3). While he waited through the suffering, he had to believe that God was present and would one day make right all that was wrong with the world. The righteous person will live by faith (Hab. 2:4).

When we turn to the New Testament, the underlying note of the Old Testament is repeated: “The righteous person shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). The apostle Paul emphasized that Christians will often look anything but prosperous. However, even though we are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down, we are not forsaken. This is the life of a Christian: “We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11). The logic of the New Testament is that since Jesus himself suffered, we also will face suffering. Taking up the cross of Christ means seeing all of life through the cross and embracing a life of suffering now and glory later.

Mundane Suffering

My grandmother is now eighty-nine years old and suffers from multiple autoimmune diseases. Her eyes regularly need painful injections so that she can continue to see. She faces physical suffering every day at a variety of levels. This suffering is an example of ordinary daily trials faced later in life. But it requires a daily dependence on God and faith that he is with her. It often appears like he is absent, and she rarely experiences relief. While it seems she must face her suffering without God, faith reminds her that she is before God. He is with her. As she takes up her cross and follows Jesus, he carries her.

The call to see life through the cross and walk by faith is not just for martyrs or missionaries. It has profound implications for mundane, ordinary suffering. We must fight the temptation to belittle the suffering we face as if it has no value compared to the suffering of others. Every stage of life comes with unique challenges and suffering. It may seem like God is silent. This is not only wrestled with in Nazi prison cells but in the complexities of everyday life. No matter how mundane our suffering is, God is glorified when we walk through it in faith.

The righteous person lives by faith. God is there and not silent. In the daily grind of life and work that feels monotonous and unfulfilling, we believe God is working and active. When acute suffering or tragedy strikes, we see God’s presence through the eyes of faith. When we feel most forsaken, we turn to God in trust.

We are not forsaken when we face God’s silence but with God and before God. He will pull us through into glory.