So last week, I preached on the poignant scene where Elijah was told God would soon come by. God wasn’t in the ear splitting gale or the foundation crumbling earthquake or the inferno that burned the world around him.
It was the silence where Elijah recognized God.
Sure I preached the typical message that God‘s small still voice is always there.
However, it was in my own personal prayer time that I re-realized that Elijah has seen God use wind, fire, and earthquake to work in his life. But in these moments—these moments where Elijah was ready to give up—that he no longer needed God to show up in those. Elijah needed the stillness.
I started thinking of how often friends will mention how God seems distant or how their faith isn’t strong enough. They’ll then hit me with those words, “I’m doing everything the same way I’ve always done it.”
Some say the poisonous pill for Christians is the “never done it” or the “always done it” variety. The fear of new or different stalls is from moving on.
Elijah has faced a new challenge and has found fear to be overtaking his joy. The calamities and cacophony and craziness might have been the exact prescription before. However, in this moment, he needed to be reminded of God’s presence in stillness.
We have gotten so used to the craziness of our world the past 3 years that perhaps we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in and lean into the mundane.
Perhaps we might need to stand in the proverbial cave and let that Facebook post pass you by or to simply pass by a tv without turning it on partisan news or let the politician talk without feeling the need to listen. In letting those pass by, perhaps we will find God in a new place—a place and a space uninhibited by the joylessness or bitter that the aforementioned occurrences might bring. God is always there—sometimes it just means drowning out the noise, accepting the new, and listening for the stillness.