While He Is Silent

Sometimes, in our Christian walk we can feel as though God is silent. We can feel that our prayers only reach as high as the ceiling, or that they are simply rituals without feeling or passion. Our circumstances give us a sense that our ever-present God is not so present after all. The results? It can lead to depression or despair and it can have us asking "Where is my God?"

As I read today in 1 Kings 18-19, I looked deeper into the life of a prophet named ELIJAH. In chapter 18, Elijah is used as a vessel to display God's glory to the prophets of Baal. After doing this, in the last verse of chapter 18, the bible says "the power of The Lord came upon ELIJAH." In the beginning of chapter 19, we see that ELIJAH becomes depressed. I can relate to ELIJAH in feeling overwhelmingly depressed after having such a strong spiritual high! The enemy, Jezebel, was out for his life. As followers of Christ, the enemy hates the God in us, and will do anything to distract us from keeping our eyes off Christ and on our current life issues.

So circumstances arise, and like ELIJAH, we run and wallow in our misery. As we run and wallow and run and wallow, we become weary. After wallowing and crying out to The Lord, ELIJAH falls asleep. I believe this represents how God just wants us to rest in Him. In the bible it says in verses 5-8, that an angel came to bring ELIJAH food and it strengthened him to make to take the next steps of his journey. When we rest in God, through His word and prayer, we allow Him to strengthen us to take the next steps of our own journey: life. Once ELIJAH was strengthened, God was able to speak to Him and instruct him on where to go next.

So, His silence isn't deafening, it's strengthening. It instructs us. We want God to show up and rescue us from our circumstances with a big flash so the world can see how He came through for us. That's not always His will. On in the story, God instructed ELIJAH to "go and stand on the mountain because the presence of The Lord is going to pass by (I Kn 19:11)." God did not come through the wind. He did not come through the earthquake. He did not even come through the fire. After all of the that, He came with a gentle whisper to speak to ELIJAH (I Kn 19: 11-12).

ELIJAH never would have experienced God in this way without being threatened by Jezebel. We can't look at our circumstances as death sentences. Let's look at them as growing pains to be able to experience The Lord in ways we never have before. In Ways that don't consist of standing in front of thousands  for God to meet you, or getting prayed over by some preacher/prophet. I'm not saying those are bad things, but often we look to creation for strength and answers before we look to the Creator. Let's grow by experiencing His gentle whisper today.


Loving you,

Chelsea Elizabeth