Maybe you’ve been where I am now – a bit of a funk. Not like a depression funk, but an “I don’t have anything to say” funk.
In a real sense I make my living with words – as a preacher of words, a writer of words, and a speaker of words to those who are discouraged and broken-hearted. So it’s a bit unnerving when I hit patches when I can’t find the words, any words, to speak
Some 2,700 years ago the prophet Isaiah wrote,
They came to you in their distress…they could barely whisper a prayer. As a pregnant woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so we were in your presence, LORD. We were with child, we writhed in labor, but we gave birth to wind. (Isaiah 26:16-18).
Maybe that describes you right now. If so, what should you do?
Here’s my two cents: Don’t say anything.
If you can’t pray, don’t. If you can’t speak, have someone else speak for you. Trust that God can accomplish more through your silence than your speech. Poet David Whyte writes,
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There’s years of godly wisdom there worth listening to.
Ideas worth hearing need time to gestate, as do prophetic words that will eventually cut to the heart. As do parental comments that need to be saved up, mulled over, and delivered many years later.
Nothing is more painful to watch, or listen to, than someone giving birth to the wind.
