whispers

It was Elijah’s great moment.

A stand-off between the priests of Baal – the spiritual seductresses that had led Israel to whore herself out to another lover – and THE God. The I AM. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God who by His choice made Israel a chosen people.

And God won.

Fire fell from the sky. The altar was consumed. The priests were killed.

Elijah could not have dreamed a better result. God had show up in power and surely now – after all of this – Israel would rush back to Yahweh. Jezebel and her spineless husband’s reign of oppression would end. Israel would take its place as a shining beacon of light to the world. Right?

 

Except it didn’t go that way.

The next day Jezebel was still queen … and her new mission was to kill this upstart prophet who had dared stand against her. A national manhunt began. Elijah became public enemy number one, and his world came crashing back to reality. He remembered how far Israel had travelled from God, how dark the spiritual landscape of the country really was, and maybe he started realizing his grandiose dreams of change – of believing that God through him would turn everything around in a day … well, maybe those dreams were just dreams.

Nothing had changed for better. Everything had changed for the worse. Elijah felt like some pawn in a chess game where the outcome was uncertain, but his demise was a given. No pawn attacks the queen and wins.

So Elijah fled into the desert. The darkness of his depression eating away like a parasite at the hope in his heart. And eventually he ends up on a mountain where God says “what are you doing here?”

What am I doing here! Elijah must have thought. I’m saving my life. I’m fleeing from a queen who is STILL ruling what’s supposed to be YOUR people! The fire on the altar was a nice touch, but NOTHING has changed God! You asked me to be obedient, you said you’d use me, and it’s ALL STILL THE SAME! What was the point? Why did you do this to me?

And then God passes before Elijah, with wind that tore rocks from the face of the cliff, and an earthquake that rattled Elijah’s bones, and a scorching fire. THIS was the power Elijah had wanted to see. THIS was how he had wanted God to act. WHERE had THIS God been?

But God doesn’t speak to Elijah through the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire.

He speaks in a still, small voice.

He speaks in the way Elijah least expects.

He doesn’t bowl Elijah over with His power or force Elijah to submit to His will through grandiose “acts of God.” He just whispers to Him.

I wonder if God’s point was I know what you would have me do. Wipe out the enemies. Reestablish things immediately. Give you the victory you’re looking for. And I could do that … but in this world, I speak mostly like this. I want people to know me. I want them to hear me when I whisper. And I want you to hear me in the whispers too.

Then God whispered His truth to Elijah: I have a plan. I’m raising up new kings. I have a prophet who will take your place. There are 7,000 others who are loyal to me.

In other words: I’m doing things my way, in my time. I’m invading this world one heart at a time. I’m setting a plan into motion you can’t imagine, and that no one will see coming.

 

I think what Elijah needed to be reminded of was that while we all want to follow the God of earthquakes, and winds and immediate victories, we serve a God who moves at His own pace, and speaks mostly in whispers.

 

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