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I had an interesting moment last night (that would be Friday night) as I left our boys’ room after a hasty “Good Night.” We had spent another evening on many activities we enjoy doing together, and at that point, I was tired and needed to leave. We always talk with God together before Mom or Dad leaves the room, and that night was no exception. Often in the most hurried nights, Ian will slip in a little open window to his heart. He’s good at that. And last night was no exception.

The boys and I were talking about how God responds to us when we talk to him. Kids are great, cause they’re not afraid to say they hear God talking back to them. 🙂 I love that. We encourage that. Our Father is very real, and wants a relationship with us, not our cowering and fearful, compulsory adulation. So Alex had said something about a question he directed to God, to which I responded, “And what did He say?” Alex told me what he said, and I smiled. We spoke a bit more, and Ian said with a somewhat troubled tone, “I don’t hear God much anymore…”

I was puzzled at such a statement. Ian continued, “Not as much as I used to, at least. I’m not sure why.”

What do you say to that? An opportunity to encourage my little boy to listen, and trust that God is listening to him even though he is unable to hear God’s voice at the moment. I explained that I have noticed God to be silent at times – even when I wished he were not – just because he didn’t have anything to say. 🙂 At those times, we rest in his love for us, which he has proven many times over, and we wait to hear from him again. Ian seemed to be satisfied with the answer, and so we hugged, and I left the room.

But I was not quite as satisfied.

Ian is the only one of our children who really spent some time in the institutionalized church. We have not been much of a part of it for much of Alex’s growing up, and hardly any of Kirsten’s very young life. So Ian has some fond memories of the structures of that system. He recalls the children’s programs, and Sunday school, and all the things that good little Christians are meant to do. So, at times, he innocently questions why we no longer participate in such routines, especially since his grandparents and many other extended family members are so deeply involved in them.

With that background, I noticed a little crack in my levee, allowing a trickle of doubt to gnaw at the lining of my stomach. “Are we doing the right thing? Is God’s silence a sign that we are supposed to be “going to church”? Am I ruining my kids lives? Will we be condemned to Hell?” OK, the last one didn’t really cross my mind, but perhaps I came close.

See, this is the trap of performance based religion. This way of thinking says that if good things are happening, God is pleased, and if bad things are happening (including the absence of good things), then something is wrong and must be corrected. An attempt to appease the deity must be made. And though I am so completely convinced from scripture and from my relationship with my Father that he does not operate that way… so many years of “watching the signs” and making the necessary course corrections allowed me to wallow in self-doubt for a time last night.

No more. There is no longer condemnation. I have been forgiven. I am free. I am loved. He calls me friend. All truths I know in my heart. My body is tired these days, and so they are definitely more easily replaced by the easier “appeasement mode” of past years. But I will not revert to relying on my own performance.

“I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.” (The Message, Gal 2:21-22)

A friend posted that to her blog this evening, and it reminded me of the amazingness of grace. It really has not a thing to do with what we do. We can no more manipulate God through our performance than we can lose his unquenchable love for us.

He may be “silent”, or we may see “bad things” around us, but friend, do not let your heart be troubled. If God is for us, who can be against us.

And he is for us.