Still Digging: When God’s Silence Feels Like a Riddle

Warning: This is an extremely honest post.

When I started this blog, I promised myself I would write with honesty. Not polished honesty. Not the kind that looks good in a Facebook post where everyone’s smiling on vacation, pretending everything is okay. I mean the real kind—the kind that sits heavy on your chest and makes you wonder if you’re allowed to say it out loud.

Since leaving ministry, I’ve felt lost.

It’s been six years. And still, I haven’t found a landing spot. Every time I think I’ve finally arrived somewhere—spiritually, vocationally, emotionally—it’s like the river dries up beneath me and I’m forced to start walking again, barefoot and uncertain, in search of something solid.

Recently, I watched a documentary about a modern-day treasure hunt. A wealthy man had hidden a treasure chest somewhere in America and left a riddle in a book, inviting anyone to decipher it and find the prize. It was part mystery, part madness. Some people spent a decade searching. Most never found a thing.

One story in particular haunted me.

A father and his sons poured years of their lives, their money, and their hope into the hunt. They believed, with full conviction, that they had solved the riddle. Their answer led them to a massive boulder in the wilderness of Montana. They were so sure they were right—after all, the man who hid the treasure had corrected other searchers who were off track. But he said nothing to them.

So they started digging. And digging. For two years, they fought through bitter winters, rocky terrain, and doubt. And then—nothing. The treasure wasn’t there.

They weren’t just disappointed. They were heartbroken.

On camera, they wept. And one line struck me in the gut:

“Why wouldn’t he tell us we were on the wrong path? He corrected everyone else. Why not us?”

I haven’t been able to shake that question.

Because I’ve asked it too. But not about treasure.

About God.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve been given a riddle. A blurry, confusing, contradictory riddle about what I’m supposed to do with my life. I try to pray. I fast. I journal. I beg. I cry out in the dark for direction. I search the Scriptures. I ask for wisdom. I knock. I knock. I knock.

But the door stays closed. Or worse—sometimes it opens, just enough for me to step through, only to find a dead end on the other side.

If you read my prayer journals, you’d see page after page of desperate requests:

“God, just tell me what You want. Show me where to go. I’ll do it. Just speak.”

But silence. Just silence.

And like those treasure hunters, I find myself asking,

“Why won’t You tell me if I’m on the wrong path? Why let me keep digging?”

I don’t have a clean ending to this post. No resolution. No breakthrough moment.

But maybe someone else out there feels the same. Maybe you’re digging in hard ground with frozen hands, wondering why the God who spoke the universe into being seems so quiet about your next step.

If that’s you, I don’t have answers—but I do have company. You’re not alone in the silence. You’re not the only one still digging.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s part of the treasure.