While You WaitSample

After three years in hiding, God directs Elijah to meet King Ahab and declare the end of the drought. Elijah issues a challenge to the king and prophets of Baal: they would each set out a sacrifice and not set it on fire. The 450 prophets of Baal would call on the name of their God and Elijah would call on his God. Then Elijah says: “The God who answers by fire – He is God.”

The Baal worshipers pray and chant and dance and shout till the time of the evening sacrifice. But nothing happens. When it’s Elijah’s turn, he asks for the sacrifice to be drenched in water – with so many jugs of water that the sacrifice, the altar and the surrounding trench are all soaked.

Elijah was creating an “Only God” moment. What was about to happen was beyond human intervention. In yesterday’s plan, we saw that Elijah exercised his faith in the upper room of the widow’s house when no one was watching. He was able to display that same unflinching faith when 450 pairs of enemy eyes were staring him down at Mt Carmel. 

Elijah prays and God strikes the sacrifice with fire from heaven.

The Mt Carmel miracle is something that many of us are likely to most associate with Elijah. This was what I call Elijah’s “after picture” - a victorious Elijah after an amazing pyrotechnics show. 

But I do believe that there would be no after picture if there was no before picture. Yes, God would have displayed His splendor with or without Elijah. But through the years of preparation and training, Elijah had the privilege of participating in the glorious miracle.

God doesn’t Photoshop the before picture or use a filter to make it look glamorous and Instagram-worthy. He is in the business of transforming our heart and our character through the waiting.