Even Prophets Can Feel Like God Is Silent.

The Word at the Table

I'm Neal Reyes, The Entrepreneurs' Pastor, and I'm glad you're at the table. This week I'm bringing you two distinct words again. One for your faith and one for your leadership. Both are going to call you to show up as the real thing, not a performance of it. Let's get into it.

This Week's Word

The Opening: Even Prophets Can Feel Like God Is Silent

I want to open with something from the Word that I believe is going to give a lot of people permission to exhale today.

In the book of Habakkuk, which is one of the minor prophets of the Old Testament, we have a prophet who is doing exactly what a prophet is supposed to do. He is in communication with God. He is hearing His voice. He is delivering His Word to the people. And yet in Habakkuk 1:2 NKJV, he cries out and says this.

O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? Even cry out to You, violence, and You will not save.

Let that land for a moment. This is not a doubter. This is not someone who has never encountered God. This is a prophet. A man through whom God was actively speaking to entire generations. And even he went through a season where he cried out and felt like God was not hearing him.

I am sharing this with you not to plant doubt in your heart but to pull it out of hiding. Because one of the greatest tricks the enemy uses on believers is making you feel like you are the only one who has ever gone through this. Like if God really knew you, you would not be feeling this way. Like the fact that when He feels silent it means He must be mad with you, or He has forgotten you, or He must not care anymore.

All of those statements go directly against what God's Word says about you.

And the truth is, even King David felt this way when he wrote in Psalms 13:1 NKJV, "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?" If you have ever felt this way, then you are in very good company.

What I want you to understand today is that God's silence is not His absence. And the question is not whether He hears you. He does. The question is what to do while you are waiting for the answer.

Part One: Why Does God Feel Silent?

We wrapped up our series When Prayer Feels Hard: Honest Conversations With God on Champion's Walk this week. And today we are tackling what I believe is the hardest question of the entire series.

What do you do when God feels completely silent?

Before I answer that, I want to remind you of something we established in Part One of this series. He hears you while you are still speaking. Isaiah 65:24 NKJV tells us, before they call, I will answer. And while they are still speaking, I will hear. So the silence you are experiencing is not a communication failure on His end. It is something else. And I want to show you what that something else can be.

Faith Anchor #1: An honest conversation with God is more powerful than any perfect prayer.

Prayer does not need to be sophisticated. It does not need to be polished or elegant. It just needs to come from your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 NKJV says, you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Not with the right words. With all of your heart.

And here is where I want to challenge you gently. Some of the people reading this right now have not actually invited God into the specific situation that has them stuck. You know He knows about it. You figure He sees everything, so He will handle it. But He is a perfect gentleman. He does not force His way into any area of your life that you have not opened the door to. The expectation that He will fix it because He is aware of it is not the same as actually bringing it before Him and saying, Lord, I need You here.

So the first thing you do when God feels silent is you open the door. You go to Him with the actual thing. Not a general prayer. The specific thing. Name it. Give it language. Bring it to Him exactly as it is.

Faith Anchor #2: God's silence is not His absence. It is often an invitation to go deeper.

Psalms 46:10 NKJV says, Be still, and know that I am God. When we are desperate for an answer and the silence stretches on, the last thing we want to hear is be still. But I want you to understand something about that instruction. Being still is not passive. It is one of the hardest active choices a believer can make. Because everything in you wants to react, to figure it out, to get busy solving it. And God is saying, stop. Trust me. Know that I am God. Not just with your head. Know it in the place where the anxiety, fear, and pressure is living right now.

Sometimes the silence is not a withholding. It is a growing. He is stretching your faith at a new level. What got you through the last level may not be sufficient for the next one. The silence can be God repositioning you for something larger than what you were praying for. And in that stretching, He is growing you from glory to glory.

Faith Anchor #3: God's silence in a season does not mean God's absence in your situation. He is still working.

So here is what you do. You keep showing up. You keep seeking. You keep knocking. Not to convince Him, but to stay connected to Him. Because it is in that place of continued fellowship, continued time in His Word, continued honest conversation, that you will hear His voice when it comes. And it will come.

Habakkuk cried out. David cried out. And both of them walked through the silence into a deeper encounter with the living God. You are not behind them. You are following their path.

Part Two: You Cannot Fake Readiness

Now let me bring you the second word for today. And I want to open with something that I think most people have heard but not everyone has really examined.

Fake it till you make it.

We have all heard that phrase. And I want to be honest with you about it. At a surface level, there is a grain of truth in it. There is something to the embodiment principle we talked about a few weeks ago, where stepping into the posture of who you are called to be before you fully feel it can bridge you to the real thing.

But here is where fake it till you make it breaks down. It only works in the kiddie pool. The moment you step into the deep end, the spotlight, the room where it really counts, you cannot fake what that moment is going to force you to prove.

Leadership Truth Bomb #1: You cannot fake what the spotlight forces you to prove.

Talent may get you in the door. But readiness is what keeps you in the room. And the difference between the two is not natural gifting. It is the work you put in behind closed doors when no one is watching and nobody is applauding.

You know what Les Brown shared at an event I attended? He talked about Martin Luther King and the I Have a Dream speech. Most people know that speech. But what most people do not know is that by the time Dr. King delivered it that day on the National Mall, he had already given that speech over three hundred times. That was not new material. That was cultivated excellence showing up at its moment.

That is what readiness looks like. You do not wait for the moment to start preparing. You do it in season and out of season, before the call or opportunity ever appears. You prepare so consistently that if the call came today, you would be ready. Most people think that when the moment arrives, you will just rise to the occasion. But the sad truth is that most people do not. Instead, they fall to the level of their preparation.

Leadership Truth Bomb #2: You don't rise to the occasion. You fall to the level of your preparation.

That line changed how I think about everything. In business. In leadership. In ministry. Because it means the work I do in the off hours is the ceiling of what I will deliver when the spotlight is on. And if I have not been doing the deep work, the moment will expose that. Every time.

The next thing I want you to hear is this. Talking big is not the same thing as delivering big.

Vision matters. Big thinking matters. I believe in big dreaming and I teach it. But vision is only as powerful as the discipline, the systems, and the self mastery that back it up. Confidence without competence is just noise. And the people at the top of any industry know the difference the moment they encounter it.

Leadership Truth Bomb #3: Big dreams without discipline are just well decorated fantasies.

Leaders and high-level performers can spot fake from a mile away. They have earned their seat through preparation, not performance. And when they see someone leaning on reputation or title instead of actual readiness, it disqualifies that person from the room before they ever speak a word.

Which brings me to the final point. Readiness is not perfection. It is ownership.

You do not have to know everything. But you do have to own your lane. Know your strengths. Shore up your gaps. Lead from real depth. Because the people who show up prepared do not need to fake anything. They prove it the moment the opportunity arrives.

Leadership Truth Bomb #4: Prepared people don't need to fake it. They prove it.

You have greatness on the inside of you. But greatness that stays on the inside does not change anything. Cultivate it. Build it. Develop it in the hours when no one is watching. Because your moment is coming.

Take This With You

This week I want you to do two things, one for each word we covered today.

On the faith side, if there is a season of silence you have been in, I want you to do something specific. Find Psalms 46:10 and sit with it this week. Not as a cliché. As an instruction. Be still. And in that stillness, invite God specifically into the area you have been holding at arm's length from Him. Name it. Hand it over. And then trust His character while you wait.

On the leadership side, I want you to ask yourself honestly: am I ready right now? If the call you have been waiting for came tomorrow, would you have to scramble? If the answer is yes, that is not a reason for shame. It is a starting point. Identify the one area where your preparation has lapsed. Get back in the work this week. Because your opportunity is coming, and you need to be ready when it does.

From the Table Last Week

On Champion's Walk, my faith show that teaches Real Help For Real Hope, I brought you Why Does God Feel Silent? This was Part 3 and the final installment of our series When Prayer Feels Hard: Honest Conversations With God. I took you through Habakkuk 1:2, Psalms 13, and Psalms 46:10, showed you that even the prophets went through seasons of silence, and closed out the series with three faith anchors that will change how you navigate the moments when God feels distant. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afpcqe5t9Qk&list=PLMPDSgKkGZNvHLzeBuhqHvZhuCSMEQEgV

On The Executive Perspective, my leadership and business show that delivers Real Help For Real Success, I brought you Fake It Till You Make It Is a Lie. Here Is the Truth About What the Top Requires. I broke down why that phrase fails at the highest levels, what real readiness actually looks like, the Martin Luther King preparation story, and four leadership truth bombs that will challenge how you show up in your most important moments. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kO-BMhwH4U&list=PLMPDSgKkGZNuJ-dNFVFCWc3lb7BmJ07mM

Until Next Time

God hears you. And you already have what it takes to get ready. Both of those things are true right now. The only question is whether you are going to trust Him in the silence and do the work in the meantime. I believe you are. Go do both.

This Wednesday on Champion's Walk, I am bringing you a fresh word that I believe is going to meet you exactly where you are. Do not miss it.

Then Saturday on The Executive Perspective, I am dropping something for the leaders and entrepreneurs who are ready to operate at their next level. Be there.

I'll see you at the table next Tuesday.

Neal Reyes, The Entrepreneurs' Pastor