Megan Schemenauer

I’ve never really minded a rainy day or two. But what about those rainy days that come in life? The kind that Longfellow wrote about when he said, “Into each life, some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary”?

My family and I went through one particularly dreary day in the spring of 2018. It was the day we found out we had 30 days to move. In one month, we would be homeless.

After three different apartment moves in two years, we had had enough. It was time to buy a house. So my husband Steve and I spent an exhausting six weeks of hard-core house hunting, scoping out 5-6 homes per weekend.

We’d already fallen in love with one house and experienced one disappointing rejection, and then finally, gloriously, an offer was accepted! In my excitement, I had given our apartment complex our 60-day notice. Then, four weeks before the Big Move, the bank had dropped the bomb on us: despite a thumbs up from our loan officer, the underwriters had rejected our loan application. Our home loan fell through, taking our dreams of home ownership with it, and giving us just 4 short weeks to find a place to live.

Difficult situations have been around since the beginning of time. In I Samuel 28, Israel had fallen on hard times as well. The beloved prophet Samuel had died. A battle with one of their fiercest enemies, the Philistines, was before them. And yet no matter how many times Saul sought God’s advice, “the Lord did not answer him” (1 Samuel 28:6). What was Saul, king of a struggling nation, supposed to do? Where should he go for advice? 

What are we supposed to do when God doesn’t answer our prayers?

When answers fail to come from God, we as humans seem to resort to a number of common responses. 

#1. We try to figure it out on our own.

Notice that Saul did not simply pray to God for the answer. I Samuel 28 says “the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim [a method of discerning God’s will by a physical sign] or prophets.” After trying so many different methods and still hearing only radio silence, Saul must have been at the end of his rope with the weight of the nation on his shoulders.

We can reach this breaking point as well. When we have prayed until it feels like we can pray no more and God still hasn’t answered, where do we turn? Many times, it’s to our own reasoning. We try to figure out our problems using our own limited human wisdom.

Unfortunately, without the greater perspective that comes from God, we often make mistakes that we later regret. We get into relationships we never should have been in. We make purchases well beyond our budgets. We behave in ways that don’t bring honor or glory to God. All because we couldn’t wait for His answer.

#2. We seek any advice, even if it’s unreliable. 

Another common response when God stops speaking is to turn instead to one another for advice. Don’t get me wrong; seeking advice, especially from other Christians, is not a bad idea at all. But what about the times that we turn to human wisdom instead of waiting for God’s answer? Doctors and therapists, self-help books, Oprah, Ellen — human wisdom has its place, but it can never and should never replace God’s wisdom.

In his distress, Saul sought the advice of a medium, the equivalent of us going to a fortuneteller or a palm reader today. Ironically, Saul himself had previously expelled all the mediums from the land, realizing that their advice ran contrary to the wisdom of God.

In our darkest of days, we can grow so desperate for an answer that we will even turn to people or things we know are not right for us. Anything for an answer. Anything to fill the silence.

But what if the real lesson that God is trying to teach us is simply … to wait? Faith, trust, patience — all of these virtues come from waiting, from enduring the storm and remembering that God will eventually send the rainbow.

Saul eventually received his answer, but it wasn’t what he had hoped to receive.

The medium raised up the ghost of Samuel, who gave the king the unfortunate news: “The Lord will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines” (1 Samuel 28:19). Talk about the worst news!

The end of Saul’s experience with the medium reveals another common human response to life’s rainy days:

#3. We let our disappointment affect our relationship with God.

Nobody likes the answer “no” and sometimes we can misinterpret God’s silence in a situation as a no. How do we respond to what seems like rejection? For Saul, he fell on the ground in fear. When he was offered food, he refused to eat. Sounds a lot like depression to me.

When we can’t see through the rain, it’s easy for us to become gloomy as well. We begin to lose hope. We begin to feel that because God did not answer this request that He will never answer any of our requests again. We can become angry or bitter towards God, we might stop attending church, or, like Saul, we can become depressed.

When God stops speaking, the greatest thing that we can remember can be found in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We are God’s children, and nothing gives Him more joy than to give His children good things. His love and care for us is written all over the pages of the Bible:

• 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
• John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son”
• Matthew 7:11, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Even though there may be times when God seems silent in the midst of a storm, there is never once a time that He does not love us. 

God is the One who stills the storm and stops the rain. He was the one Who, in the middle of one sleepless night in the final weeks at our apartment, quietly told me to text my sister in California about her rental home in South Bend. Even though she had had a renter for a number of years, the situation had begun to sour and she was more than happy to have us rent her home instead. It wasn’t a home of our own, but it was better than being homeless.

What we thought would be another year of renting turned out to be only four months. Unexpectedly, God finally answered our prayers: a loan provider who was able to get us the money we needed and a house here in South Bend that was even better than any we had seen previously. During those four months, we had fixed up my sister’s home, so she was able to sell it. In the end, God’s perfect timing helped not only my own family find the perfect home, but it helped my sister as well.

When we are in the midst of a storm and all we can see is the rain, never forget that God is just beyond those clouds watching over us. He sees the bigger picture: the rainbow on the other side of those rainclouds. 

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This post was written by a group of volunteer writers who strive to share God's truth through an online platform, but may not reflect the views of The Vineyard Church as a whole. To learn how you can get involved, email us at

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