(originally publsihed May 3, 2025)
It’s funny how God will sometimes strip away your visibility just so you’re forced to listen. Not watch. Not guess. Not panic. Just… listen.
We had driven into Houston to stay with dear family friends — the kind of people who feel like home. In the span of 48 hours, we were zigzagging across the city: navigating construction zones, rush hour chaos, 5 a.m. drop-offs at Bush, and my beloved grocery pilgrimage to Trader Joe’s (oh how I miss living fifteen minutes away).
But the emotional whiplash hit hardest on the way out, connect my phone as usual, and nothing but a blank screen on my dash screen. While I eventually got the Bluetooth connected, the display remained blank. No visual directions, no map, nothing but vibes. I could hear Siri, play Spotify, and also hear my dad — classic Boomer moment — arguing with Siri from the back seat, convinced he knew better. Meanwhile, my mom was riding shotgun, fully immersed in a medical podcast blaring on speaker from her phone, completely tuned out to the turmoil that surrounded her.
I was anxious. Sad. Overstimulated. Navigating unfamiliar roads in silence with precious cargo and a blank screen. But in that moment, something shifted: I stopped relying on what I could see and tuned into what I could hear.
I started listening for God. Not audibly, not in some cinematic voiceover, but in that quiet gut-level instinct that told me: keep going. You’re fine. You’re not lost. You’ll get home.
And I did.
Because lately? Life has felt exactly like that drive — like I’m being asked to move forward with no clear map.
But God doesn’t need a map. He is the map.
And sometimes the silence is not abandonment — it’s a sacred pause. It’s the preparation before the promise.
The sermon this week — Killing It In Silence — echoed that same truth. Just because no one sees the progress doesn’t mean the breakthrough isn’t coming. Just because you’re quiet doesn’t mean you’re not growing.
Then came the next morning’s devotional: Be Patient. It shared the story of Moses — how he acted prematurely by killing an Egyptian, thinking he was helping, only to be sent into the desert for forty years. Why? Because God had to prepare him. Refine him. Shape him for the greater mission.
And suddenly it all made sense: the silence in my life wasn’t God ignoring me — it was God preparing me.
“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.” — Exodus 3:1–2
I’m learning that sometimes God will take everything familiar — even the GPS — just to teach you how to trust Him without it. He’ll remind you that what’s ahead requires preparation, not panic. And if we surrender, be patient, and lean in? He will get us there.
So no, I won’t wing it. I’ll pray through it. Listen harder. Lean into the stillness. And trust the One who guided me home through Houston with no GPS, no sense of direction, just a whispered peace that said:
“I’ve got you.”
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