After the Fire

Laura Digan June 19, 2022 0 2

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1 Kings 19: 1-15 (NRSVA)

1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.’ 3 Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ 6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ 8 He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. 9 At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 10 He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’

11 He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 14 He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ 15 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.

During my second placement while training for ministry I was blessed to be in a church full of the Holy Spirit. And friends, I was on FIRE for the Lord. Everything I did, everything I was involved in seemed to be full of the presence of the Lord. During worship I could feel the Lord’s presence right beside my cheek, breathing on me. I was aflame! I thought this was how worship should be all the time. I thought that this was part of my ongoing Christian journey and I had found the secret to continually dwelling in the presence of the Lord. 

I remember in a university class a lecturer, who I really admire and respect, gently told me that worship and life can’t be like that all the time. That there are times when you don’t feel the presence of God, times you don’t hear him, times that it seems God is absent. He was trying to gently encourage me to consider how we sustain ourselves in those times when it seems that God is far away, that it seems he has forgotten us. To consider putting practices into place so that I would not be adrift when I was no longer full of this holy fire. To try and find God in the whisper as well as the fire. 

In my arrogance I dismissed him, I was actually quite angry, thinking that this would not happen to me. I was always going to be on fire for the Lord. 

But sure enough it did come and sooner than I ever expected. And in despair and my abandonment I remembered my lecturer's words and in what seemed like a very dark cave, I learned to listen for that whisper from the Lord. 

PRAYER:

Lord God, 

Help me to feel you in the emptiness

Help me to sense you in the darkness

Help me to hear your whispering words

guiding, 

loving,

strengthening,

restoring,

Amen