The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems and were giving each other the silent treatment. The husband realized he needed to be awakened early one morning to catch a flight, but he didn't want to be the first to break the silence. So he left a note on his wife’s side of the bed that read, “Please wake me at 5 A.M.” By the time bright sunshine woke him the next morning, it was 9 A.M. Furious, he threw back the covers and shouted to his wife (who was nowhere to be found), “Why didn't you wake me up like I asked you to?” That’s when he saw, stuck to the lamp on his bedside table, a note in her handwriting that read, “It is 5 A.M. Time to wake up.”*

There’s nothing worse than The Silent Treatment. And, as the above illustration shows, it’s also about the most pointless scenario any relationship can experience. Why? It accomplishes nothing! Zero! So, why do we do it? Sadly, the best answer simply is: We just don’t know what else to do. Our feelings have been hurt; we want to not say the wrong thing, so we clam up and deafen the other person with our silence.

Do we do this with God? As we spend this quarter talking about prayer in our “Talking Back to God” class, one thing I’ve read over and over is how proclaimed “Christians” openly admit dissatisfaction with their prayer life. Why? Same answer – we don’t know what to say. Yes, there are some folks who find themselves hurt with life and don’t want to talk to God about it. And yes, there are those who just don’t know God well enough to talk with Him.

But what about us? What about those of us who consider ourselves faithful? Do we ever give God The Silent Treatment? Sure, it can be accidental. We get busy and just forget to pray. Or, it can be a sin problem. We have a sin issue in our lives we know we need to take care of, but just don’t. So we try to avoid talking to God out of shame or flat-out stubbornness.

Psalm 139:4 tells us, “Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, Lord” (HCSB). What do we learn from this? The Silent Treatment is pointless with God! It’s even more pointless than it is between you and your spouse – He already knows what you want to or need to say! So don’t avoid God. Don’t withhold your communication from Him out of embarrassment or pride. If there’s a sin problem, He can help with it! If your relationship with Him needs work, ask Him for help with it. When it comes to our relationship with God, the old adage “silence is golden” is not only wrong, it’s spiritually unhealthy.

* Illustration borrowed from Dennis Rainey