Life is a series of uplifts and downdraughts. We spiral upwards in times of success and downwards in times of failure. We rise to mountain peaks of elation and descend into depths of depression. We soar, and we swoop. To avoid these extremes, we need to know that God never changes. Nor does Jesus (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8). We change, but God our Father does not. Neither does our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Our knowledge of this fact makes us less subject to our feelings and more objective in our thinking. “Those who wait (entwine themselves) on the LORD shall renew (exchange) their strength (for God’s strength); they shall mount with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
When “the hand of the LORD” came upon the prophet Elijah, he ran ahead of King Ahab’s chariot. But when Queen Jezebel vowed to kill him, he “ran for his life” – two different runs in the same day! (1 Kings 18:46 & 19:3)
When the prophet hid in a cave (of self-pity?) on a mountain, the LORD came and asked him what he was doing there. After hearing his lame excuses, God told him to go outside and stand there. “And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great, strong wind tore into the mountains, and broke the rocks in pieces…but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice (“the whisper of a whisper” — like a soft breeze rustling fallen leaves).
The blast of the wind through the mountains, the rumble of the earthquake, and the ferocity of the fire must have driven Elijah back into the cave (in the way that frightening things drive us back into ourselves), because when the prophet heard God speak in a “still, small voice” he came out, his face wrapped in his mantle (cloak), and stood there, waiting.
The LORD asked him a second time why he was hiding in the cave, and Elijah repeated his excuses. The LORD then commanded him to go back and to anoint two kings and a replacement prophet. In other words, He told him to get out of his hiding-place and get back into ministry.
The powerfully anointed Elijah was as human as we are, and experienced “ups” and “downs” just like we do. We “run” with our successes and “hide” after our failures. The wind, the earthquake, and the fire are representative of the natural things we fear most – the things that threaten to blow us away, destabilise our footing, and consume things around us. The three things represented Elijah’s tempestuous, unstable and fiery temperament. Maybe you can see something of yourself in Elijah’s reactions.
If so, you need to develop something of God’s objectivity in relation to things in life that threaten you. It’s not wrong – very human in fact – to feel threatened at times, but running away from life’s realities and hiding yourself away in a kind of emotional cave is not the answer. It’s like the LORD is saying, “I am not in the external upheavals of life. You need to hear my quiet voice internally; you need to hear it in your spirit.”
If He is saying this in your heart, it’s time you got back into what you’ve run away from – back into life itself – because there are things that need to be done and you are one of the many that He has called to do them.