1 Kings 19: God is in the Whisper of the Wind
Monday, February 11, 2019
Elijah has just served as God’s instrument in the destruction of the gods of Baal. Jezebel and Ahab are furious with him and they seek revenge in the most ruthless of ways . . . and Elijah knows this. As we read Jezebel’s words at the opening of the chapter we can see that she throws her entire existence into seeking the end of Elijah. The prophet, exhausted, pleads to his God for his own end. He is drained. He has done as God has asked, and now he feels empty. But even as he seeks escape, Elijah turns to God . . . and God sustains him with cakes and water. Elijah rests and sleeps in the shade offered by a desert broom tree. An angel of God abides with him. The angel bids him to rise and go and so he walks for forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Mt. Horeb, Mt. Sinai where Yahweh spoke to Moses. And there Elijah curls into a cave to await his end. But the unexpected happens. Yahweh does speak to this tired prophet . . . not in the fierce and thrusting wind, not in the powerful and destructive earthquake, not in the consuming and searing fire. The Lord speaks in the tiny whispering wind, and he brings news of restoration and legacy. His words bring hope.
We must still our over-active lives; find a space of quiet in our hyper-speed days. We must each day seek out a broom tree in the desert whose roots sink deep into the earth to find the rivers that flow beneath the sun-baked and wind-blown dryness. We must find daily sanctuary in a small cave on God’s holy mountain of our busy world. That is where we are fed, that is where we will tune ourselves to the voice that speaks in the whisper of the wind, the voice that speaks within, the voice that calls us to unity with the creator and creation.
A re-post from February 11, 2012.
Image from: http://www.elijahscave.org/
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