God In The Times Of KingsSýnishorn

Listen to God in the Quietness 

In the aftermath of the titanic battle at Carmel, when God sent fire on the sacrifice to demonstrate that He alone is God, Elijah goes from his highest high to his lowest low. Discouraged by Jezebel’s opposition and afraid for his life, he flees into the wilderness. He journeys forty days to Horeb, also known as Sinai, the mountain of God.

God meets Elijah there. God sends a fierce wind, but He is not in the wind. God sends an earthquake, but He is not in the earthquake. God sends a fire, but He is not in the fire. Finally, God speaks to Elijah with a whisper. God certainly could have spoken to Elijah in the powerful wind, or in the fearsome earthquake, or in the consuming fire. But He chose to speak to Elijah with a whisper. A gentle and soft whisper.

It’s hard to hear a whisper, especially if you’re talking, busy, or hurrying. It’s hard to hear a whisper if you spend the entire day with no silence in your life, if there is always a radio, a TV, a CD, or a person right there with you. 

Solitude. Silence. Stillness. Quiet. We in the West aren’t so good at these. We don’t tend to value these so much. We are active go-getters, can-do folks, and people on the move. We live our lives immersed in an atmosphere of noise, music, and talking. But the whisper is God talking to our hearts and giving us advice, guidance, and assurance. Some of us, myself included, aren’t so good at listening to God. We think prayer is all about talking to God, but talking to God is just part of prayer. There’s also a time to be quiet and still before God, and hear the whisper.