I dare say that unfortunately you will not hear the following tune on Christian Radio. It is a shame. I was listening to this tune penned by Andrew Peterson as performed by Michael Card from his recording entitled, The Hidden Face of God. As I was cleaning stalls in our stable I was struck by this tune - if I had heard it before, I hadn’t really listened. This release is a wonderful recording from Card - (which probably didn’t sell real well) but the center piece of the recording is Peterson’s tune!

As I listened I came to a fresh awareness of this desire in my soul: I long to be a part of a Christian community where discussions on the silence of God is a regular topic of discussion (where this song could be a “theme song” for a season). I long for the day when Christianity is unashamed of the mystery of God (not everything has to be understood, principle-ized, dissected and made into a “how to.”) and the paradox that He is the God who reveals and the God who “hides.”

The Silence of God (by Andrew Peterson)

It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And heaven’s only answer is the silence of God

It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
‘Cause we all get lost sometimes…

There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He’s weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God