Session One Recap

If you haven't viewed the Can You Hear Me video on here check it out! It was very powerful to see how everyone interpreted this phrase into photos. Moving is the one word to describe the feeling in the room when it was shown.

A clip was shown from Bruce Almighty when he's on the bridge yelling at God. He screams, "Smite me all mighty smiter!" and "Someone around here's not doing his job!" Wow! Isn't that how all of us have felt at some time?

So what frustrates you? When do you feel like screaming with fists in the air, punching something or just curling up and crying because you don't understand what God's doing.

As Dave said this morning, you feel as though God won't listen, doesn't seem to listen or doesn't seem to care.

Senior High's theme this year is "Keep your eyes open, watch for His works and be alert for the signs of His presence." But sometimes it feels as though those signs just aren't coming through. Dave made a great reference to how this can feel - "life is full of moments where it feels as though the Divine one has His back turned with His arms crossed."

This is when people tend to walk away from God. Dave set up this retreat as one that the sessions aren’t going to be filled with laughter, but rather it will be intense. How can it not be with this subject and really digging into it?

He laid out the morning session with two answers to this question: “What do you do when God is silent?

1. When God is silent, stop and consider His enormity.
Think about His enormity for a minute...

Dave showed details and the numbers in the solar system. My non-scientific mind could still grasp this graph like images to just how ridiculously large this is. I forget this while looking up from my backyard to the dark light spotted sky. It seems large, but not 200 billion stars large. How can we understand a God who is this enormous? We have to be humble and admit we’ll never understand.

Ugh…for me and I’m sure many others that phrase isn’t the easiest to sit with. It stirs uncomfortableness for those who like the details, to know the background and to feel informed.

2. When God is silent remember there’s more going on than you know.

Dave pointed out with our Western world views how we tend to see what we can touch, see and prove. But yet most of the world thinks differently than this. There is this physical world with a veil between what we see and what the picture of Heaven is like. What does this have to do with God not listening? We're not aware of what is going on beyond the world we’re in. Check out the story of Daniel…he’s fasting and praying for weeks with no response from God. Who would think that when an angel finally shows up he describes the scene of a battle with a demon in which reinforcements are called in to get to Daniel?

This shows how if we pull back the veil and see then maybe when God is silent we’d be a little more humble and at the very least it would sober us up. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Ouch. What person likes to hear that phrase that reminds of you the first time your parents say that? Of when you asked why you didn’t get something you really wanted or weren’t getting the attention you felt like you deserved. God’s working on His own purposes as you sit here. As Dave said, “You have to think big and beyond you.”

So when you’re screaming that prayer with tears of true pain and helplessness, remember when God is silent…

Stop and consider His enormity.

Remember there’s more going on than you know.