The voice in God's Silence.

 I've found a new author that resonates with me, George Matheson, and I think this quote sums up the needs of today's church clearer than about anything I've heard in a long time. 

  "There is a revelation in the silence. There are times when the voice of God dies upon the height, and here is no testimony from the mountaintop. We call, but He answers not; we question, but there is not a reply. Yet there is a substitute; the voice of God is followed by the form of man. I come down from the Divine speculation to the human sympathy. God hides himself that I may see my brother.

It is a glorious descent. On the top of the mountain earth seems very small. Its crosses dwindle in the light of eternity. I am in danger of becoming unsympathetic to common pain. The cries of the weary are lost in the joyous songs of the redeemed. Therefore, in good time my Father comes to me in a chariot of silence. He veils Himself from my sight. He shuts the doors of the upper sanctuary. He throws a cloud over the former glory. He forces me to look down instead of up. He leads me from the crown to the cross - from the opened heaven to the imprisoned earth. He shows me Jesus alone- without His entourage, without His pomp, without His kingdom -- sinking with the pale face under the weight of human woe. The silence of God reveals Man.

  You, who are beating in vain against the problems of eternity, turn aside and be free. God's silence is a voice. It forbids you to stand gazing up into heaven. It calls you away from the mountaintop to the plain: from the Divine search to the human pity. It teaches you meekness by the absence of vision. Obey the silence of God. Go down to accompany him in the agony of man for man." George Matheson.