“I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.”
~ Psalm 69:3 ~
I don’t normally mind a blank page. It never seems daunting or menacing. To me, it seems to smile. To nod with humility as if to say, “The stage is yours. I trust you.” Yes, I’ve heard of writer’s block, but whether it’s a gift or something else altogether, I’ve always had something to say. As a child, it was a curse. As an adult, it’s the same.
We just talk too much. As a society. As Christians.
Some time back, a student sat in my office distraught. Visibly agitated. For over twenty minutes, the student poured his heart out with story after story attached to complaint after criticism. Which is fine. I actually don’t mind nor do I judge such a moment. We all need safe spaces where we can unleash, unfetter even the most vile thoughts with the full trust and belief it won’t be held against us. And in this moment, I was grateful. Honored, really, to be invited into this sacred space of bitterness and frustration.
A consistent theme, though, unfurled, “I just feel like God doesn’t care. It’s just, like, why won’t he talk back to me? Why won’t he at least answer me?”
I nodded my head, registering for at least the fourth time this specific complaint. To let them know I heard them but also, almost involuntarily, because I, too, know what it’s like to feel as if God isn’t listening. Just ignoring me regardless of how many words I might use to garner his response.
I haven’t cut my hair now in over three years. Not out of neglect, although I’m sure that’s what many assume. Typically when someone comments on my hair it falls under three H’s: Hippie, Homeless, or Heretic. It’s not often that someone asks why. Assumptions are typically enough to satisfy.
However, if you know me at all, I typically have reason or strategy for virtually everything I do. And quite often, it’s theological.
The last time I got my hair cut short was September 10, 2009. I remember the specific date because it was the day before I flew to Edinburgh, Scotland to start my Ph.D. And I remember what day I flew because, in my lifetime, the numbers 9/11 took on significant meaning, if not just simple terror. At least in regards to aviation.
I knew this would be my last short haircut for some time, because I knew I was stepping into a venture that was beyond me. Beyond my ability. Beyond my capacity. Beyond what I thought I could accomplish. At least on my own. And I wanted something to remind me of my reliance on God throughout the entire process.
In Acts 18, Paul stood on the dock of Cenchrea about to set sail from Corinth after an extended stay. In verse 18, a strange detail is registered: “Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off.” Now, Paul isn’t the first one to get his hair cut in sacred Scripture. Job shaves his head in mourning (Job 1:20); Ezekiel does the same to embody divine judgment (Ezek. 5:1); Absalom does so once a year (2 Sam 14:26), foreshadowing his “hair-centric” demise (2 Sam 18:9-15); and Samson infamously loses his locks to Delilah’s razor (Judg 16:19). In each instance that a haircut is mentioned before Acts 18:18, tragedy is the context. Demise is sure to follow. Disobedience resonates with embarrassing clarity.
Yet for Paul, this haircut wasn’t connected to rebellion but “to a vow he had taken” (Acts 18:18b). Probably a modified Nazarite vow connected to his desire to preach in Ephesus. Or at least Asia Minor.
In Acts 16:6, the Holy Spirit prevented Paul “from preaching the word in the province of Asia.” When Paul, instead, tried to push north to Bithynia, “the Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t allow it” (16:17). Frustrated, Paul journeyed to Troas where God directed him to Macedonia in a dream (16:19).
Paul’s haircut happens about three years later in Acts 18. Standing on the dock to Cenchrea, the razor symbolized more than a mere haircut but the denouement of a vow. A vow embraced before God, in service to God, even if a plea for God to respond. To free Paul from his previous prohibitions, and to allow Paul to enter Asia Minor at long last.
With strands of hair peppering the dock, Acts 18:19 announces that Paul’s wait is finally at an end, “They arrived at Ephesus.”
It’s been three years since my last haircut. Three long years of praying. Pleading. Petitioning God to move. To act. To respond to a prayer that predated my last hair cut by at least another year or two.
Trust me: my hair-length is no fashion statement. First of all, I have no fashion sense, and second of all, the unwieldy length of my hair is hardly a “sight for sore eyes.” In fact, I find it plain annoying.
And yet, my hair is a daily reminder in my mirror that I am waiting. Sometimes more patiently than other times. Nevertheless, still waiting. Waiting for God to move. For God to answer a prayer I’ve been shrieking for over half a decade. After a while, though, I find that words clutter more than clarify; belabor more than bless; curse more than carve out an answer.
Sometimes, what our prayers need is less words. Less speaking. More blank pages.
As the student’s face turned red with anger toward God’s silence, words finally waned. Faded from the table between us. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and with teeth clenched, “I just don’t know why he won’t talk back!”
I nodded. Re-tied my hair. And with a whisper to match his own, I asked, “When you pray, how often do you sit in silence?”
He shook is head. Maybe in confusion or maybe as an honest “No.”
“Why I ask,” I steadied, “is because sometimes I wonder, even in my own prayer life, if the reason we can’t hear God speak is because he can’t get a word in edgewise.”
I paused. Allowing silence to settle the Spirit within us. After more than a moment, he lowered his head as if in defeat. Or maybe just disappointment. So I continued.
“I’ve been praying to God for something almost five years. About two years in, though, I decided I’d had enough with words. He knew what I wanted. He could probably recite my complaints and pleas for me.”
He reengaged me with his eyes, albeit a bit squinted as if trying to see my point just beyond his blurry vision.
“So,” I revealed, “I decided to take a modified Nazarite vow, allowing the length of my hair to speak on my behalf. To register my prayers for me. And for the last three years, he hasn’t responded to the blank page I put before him.”
You can always feel when the air leaves a room. But it’s not always clear why. Maybe fear. Maybe relief. Maybe a loss of hope altogether. But when air leaves the room, how you respond matters most.
“Listen,” I reached across the table, “silence isn’t the absence of an answer. If you know him, if you trust him, silence can be a gift. A pledge that he’s responding to my words just not with words. With action. Action that may be subtle to detect. But action that can change the course of history.”
In Acts 16:10, right after Paul’s dream of a Macedonian man and shortly after the Spirit and Christ’s joint rejection of Paul’s missionary vision, there’s a shift in the text. Almost indiscernible. For many, undetectable. Yet a shift so essential the entire book of Acts depends on it. “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
In the forgotten city of Troas, a destination only graced due to frustrated plans and unanswered prayers, Paul met a doctor named Luke who not only became a companion in his gospel journey but a man who put pen to paper to unveil how God birthed his church through the movements of the Spirit who at times flickered with tongues of fire and at others simply offered silence.
Blank pages offer God room to speak. Silence invites God to move not at our direction but something more like the wind. An ebb and flow that doesn’t ask permission but still orchestrates clouds and rain to meet the needs of a creation drowning in thirst. Droplets to remind that God’s faithfulness is undefeated. His provision resilient even in the face of our complaints. His patience as merciful and majestic as the satisfaction felt when the razor slashes hair that’s grown for three long years.
No words needed. Just the subtle shift from they to we will suffice. And in the end, such a shift will provide an answer far more powerful than I was complaining for to begin with.
If he can just get a word in edgewise.
Thanks for your every day practical insight into life’s application of faith. My flesh is my kneejerk reflex. That we might be fully aware of His presence today, He’s not far from anyone of us .