When God Gives You the Silent Treatment

How Silent Saturday Helps Us Trust God in the "Already and Not Yet"

Between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joyous surprise of Easter Sunday lies a day we often overlook:

Silent Saturday.

It is a day of silence, uncertainty, and waiting. In the arc of Passion Week, this was the day when Jesus lay in the tomb, and His bewildered, grieving followers sat in the ache of loss, their hearts heavy with questions for which they had no answer.

Silent Saturday is an echo of the in-between places in our own lives. It reflects those seasons when hope feels distant, when clarity has not yet arrived, and when God seems quiet.

This day is more than a pause between death and resurrection. It is an invitation to sit in the silence without rushing to resolve it, to trust God in the waiting, and to remember that even when we cannot yet see it, the resurrection we long for is already on its way.

SILENT SATURDAY TEACHING ON VIDEO
NOTE: Video content is unique. It is not a replica of, but a companion to, this essay.

The Deafening Silence of God

Imagine what that first Silent Saturday must have felt like for the disciples. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, they had watched their Rabbi—the One they believed was the Messiah—die a brutal death on a Roman cross. All their hopes, all their expectations, seemed to have been buried with Him. The streets of Jerusalem, which had echoed with shouts of Hosanna! just days before, were now eerily quiet.

The One who had healed the sick, walked on water, raised the dead, and proclaimed the coming of God's Kingdom was now sealed in a tomb.

We, too, have our own Silent Saturday moments—those seasons of painful waiting when the future feels uncertain and God seems silent. When the job offer never comes. When the diagnosis is worse than we feared. When a loved one is taken too soon. In these moments, God's silence can feel deafening.

C.S. Lewis, in A Grief Observed, captured this anguish after the loss of his wife Joy to a violent, terminal cancer: “Go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.” Lewis put words to what so many of us have felt—that aching sense that God is not paying attention precisely when we need Him most.

And yet, even in the silence, God is at work. Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10). Even when He seems to have gone quiet, He has not abandoned us. He will never leave or forsake us.

The Hidden Work of God in the Waiting

Silent Saturday reminds us that God is still moving, even when we cannot see it. Scripture provides us a glimpse of what was happening beyond what the disciples could perceive. In 1 Peter 3:19, we are told that Jesus “went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.”

While the world waited in silence, Jesus was actively defeating sin and death in ways His closest followers and friends could neither see nor understand.

The same is true in our own lives. Just because we cannot see God working does not mean He is absent. Think of a seed beneath the soil. Before it ever breaks through the surface, an unseen process of transformation is taking place. If we judged too soon, we might assume nothing was happening. But in time, life, beauty, and nourishment emerges.

Or consider the artist at work. A painter may spend hours blending colors before ever touching brush to canvas. A sculptor might chip away at stone, each strike of the hammer appearing insignificant, yet every movement shaping something beautiful. God is the master artist, working with precision and purpose—even when we cannot yet see the full masterpiece.

Some of the greatest transformations in our lives happen in the waiting. Often, in the moments when God seems silent, He is doing His deepest work. Isaiah 40:31 assures us, “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Silent Saturday asks us:

Will we trust Him in the stillness?

Learning to Embrace and Sit in the Tension

We live in a culture that is deeply uncomfortable with waiting. We expect instant results, quick resolutions, and immediate answers. We are an urgent people. But life in Christ does not follow that rhythm.

Growth, healing, and transformation take time.

Rather than rushing ahead to Easter Sunday, Silent Saturday invites us to sit in the sorrow of what has been lost and the hope of what is yet to come.

Consider Joseph in the Old Testament (Genesis chapters 37-50). Betrayed by his own brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and imprisoned, Joseph endured years of waiting. There were no immediate answers. No quick fixes. And yet, in the silence of his suffering, God was at work, positioning him for something far greater than he could imagine. When the time was right, God elevated Joseph to a place of influence, where he would save many lives during a famine.

Joseph’s life reminds us that though we may feel forgotten even for long, arduous seasons, God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, and to give us a hope and a future—and He will set that plan in motion when He determines that the time is right to do so (Jeremiah 29:11).

To reap the fruit of Silent Saturday, we must first own the reality of our grief and uncertainty. The disciples did not yet know that Easter was coming. They had to sit in their sorrow, and sometimes, so must we. We must resist the urge to force quick answers, remembering that God is not bound by our timelines. He works in ways beyond our comprehension. Even when He seems silent, His silence is never an indication of His absence. Just as God was at work in unseen ways concerning Joseph, He is still moving in our waiting.

And through it all, we can live in hope. Sunday is coming. Resurrection is on the way. Even when all seems lost, God’s final word for His people is never death, but life.

When we resist the urge to rush ahead, we create space for God’s deeper work within us. Faith is often forged in the pain of waiting, where our dependence on Him becomes more real and our trust grows into a sure and steady anchor.

The Hope of Resurrection

Silent Saturday is not the end of the story. The stone will be rolled away. The silence will be broken. And when it is, we will see in retrospect that God was faithful all along.

So if you find yourself in a Silent Saturday season—where the weight of loss is real, where God’s presence feels distant, where answers have not yet come—take heart.

The waiting, your waiting, has an expiration date.

And what’s more? As a believer in Christ who will also one day be resurrected into a sinless, joyous, perfect eternal state, your very best days always lie ahead of you and never behind you. In Christ, there are no has-beens. Only children of the Most High God who, because of Jesus have experienced forgiveness for every wrong, live in a present state of hope, and will be swept up in a future world of perfection and glory.

Jesus did not stay in the tomb. And neither will we. The same power that raised Him from the dead is already at work in us (Romans 8:11). When hope seems lost, in reality it is on the verge of breaking through.

If you are in a season of silence, be encouraged: silence is not the end. God is always writing a greater story than we can see. And when He moves, when the waiting is over, we will look back with clearer eyes and see how His faithfulness sustained and hovered over us all along.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13).

Even in the waiting, even in the silence, God is at work.

See you at sunrise!