Background: I Kings 19:11-12
Back in 2003, Natalie Gilbert, a 13-year-old girl, was scheduled to perform the National Anthem at an NBA basketball game. She had a beautiful voice and frequently sang the anthem at other public events. This time was different, though. As she began to sing, her memory failed her. The familiar words to The Star-Spangled Banner would not come.
Gilbert stood in front of the packed arena crowd and a live television audience in silence, shocked and humiliated…in front of God and everybody.
As the music played unaccompanied by words, Maurice Cheeks, then coach of the Portland Trailblazers walked up and stood beside Gilbert with his arm around her shoulders. He bent over and began to whisper the words in her ear. As she picked up the song, he stood and sang with her, a little off-key, waving to the 20,000 in attendance to join in.
Cheeks, in his compassion, cared so much for a scared girl he did not know so he whispered the words she needed to hear. “I just didn’t want her to feel alone,” he later said.
That whisper reminded me of another quiet voice directed toward a scared individual who felt all alone. I’ve written about it before.
Back on July 28, 2018, I wrote a devotional entitled, “What Are You Doing Here,” using the biblical text found in I Kings 19. Elijah, the great prophet of God called down the thunder and lightning on the false priests of Baal, demonstrating the reality of the God of creation that he served.
His little show brought out the wrath of Queen Jezebel who put a bounty on Elijah’s head. The mighty prophet lost his nerve and ran as far away as his feet would take him.
Troubled and despondent, Elijah huddled in a cave on Mount Horeb wishing for death to come when God drew him out of his despair by asking a simple question. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” God reminded the prophet that he was not finished with him yet. There was still work to do.
It was a reminder I needed at the time. (If you’re interested, you can find it in the archives of my website. http://wordpress.drkirklewis.com/2018/07/
I found myself again in I Kings this week reading the same story. As he often does, God chose to teach me a new thing. A different lesson from the same set of verses.
Elijah huddled in the corner of his cave wrapped in a blanket of self-pity, determined to make the cave his crypt. God, in his understanding of the human soul, urged Elijah to get up.
“Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” (I Kings 19:11)
Whether he climbed this mountain on purpose or by providence, God’s prophet found himself on Mount Horeb…Mount Sinai. The same mountain where God revealed himself to Moses in the lightning, smoke and thunder as he was leading the Hebrew people from captivity in Egypt.
God would again use this place to open the eyes of his servant.
Before Elijah could rise from his hiding place to do as God asked, a raging wind tore boulders from the cliff, threatening to trap him inside. An earthquake rattled the ground beneath and above him, showering him in dust and fragments of stone. An inferno scoured the landscape below him, consuming everything in its path.
Though Moses experienced God’s presence in the storm, Elijah would not find God in the terrifying display of nature’s power. But…
“…after the fire came a gentle whisper” (I Kings 19:12)
At the sound of a still, small voice, Elijah gathered himself and walked out of the cave onto the ledge of the mountain. God opened his eyes to the possibility that there was still work to be done.
It is in that whisper that God had another lesson to teach me this week. Have you ever wondered how God speaks to us today…or even if he speaks?
God brought the consuming lightning to the altar on Mount Carmel, giving Elijah the victory over the pagan prophets. He spoke in the power of that moment.
Bold.
Brash.
Brilliant.
We want God’s word to us to be equally clear. We want the bold and the dramatic so we can’t possibly miss what God wants us to do…what he’s trying to say to us.
Give us a burning bush.
Manna from Heaven.
A whirlwind.
But God is not always into the bold and dramatic. He’s not always making the big splash that we want him to make. The voice does not call out to us from the clouds, “This thou shalt do…,” though that would be infinitely easier on us.
God’s word is not always dramatic. Sometimes, its a whisper.
Silent.
Soft.
Subtle.
The contrast of the tumult outside the cave and gentle murmur tickling the ear reminds me that God speaks most often in his way. If we only wait for God to speak to us in the extraordinary and uncommon, we will rarely hear his voice in the ordinary and common moments of life.
If we’re waiting for the king’s proclamation following the blast of trumpets and the shout of angels, we will miss the stifled cry of a baby, wrapped in ragged clothes and laying in a manger of smelly hay.
If we’re waiting for the battle cry of rebellion against the forces of evil, will will miss the soft voice from the cross, “It is finished.”
If we’re waiting for God to stand outside the tomb and shout, “I’m back!” we’ll miss him quietly asking us, “Whom do you seek?”
How does God speak to his people today? With every tool at his disposal from the miraculous to the mundane, I know he has many ways. This story of Elijah tells us just one. But, this one way, I believe, is his most prominent way, of speaking to me. I’ve found it to be true in my life.
God speaks to me in the still, small voice inside my heart and head. It is the voice that tells me that person at the table with the sad eyes needs to hear a word of encouragement. The man with the angry face needs my presence today. That homeless man on the corner could really use that $20 in my wallet. That child sitting alone at lunch needs me to sit with them for a while. MY wife needs a hug today.
God speaks through the unseen actions of his people. The random and intentional acts of kindness that provide meals for the family of the one with cancer. With every tree cleared from a stranger’s driveway in the aftermath of a devastating storm. With every step of progress made toward social justice that makes a nation better than it was before. God speaks through his people in the every day, nitty-gritty reality of life.
God speaks to me through the quiet voice of his spirit that guides me down a path I would not otherwise choose because he knows that place is the best place for me to be.
It is less important how God speaks to us than what we do with what he says.
The voice that whispered to Elijah is the same voice that whispers to me and you. We have an opportunity Elijah didn’t have. Elijah could not look upon the Lord. He was not permitted.
Because God became flesh and dwelt among us, because he lived, died and was resurrected, because Jesus words were written in scripture and made available to all of us, we can see and hear the one who speaks to us by reading his word, hearing his voice pour out of the printed page and into our hearts.
I think back on the times of my life when I stood frozen at center court, unable to speak or move. Amid the awkwardness, God’s voice whispers in my ear a word of purpose and encouragement, giving me the words to sing. As my faltering voice catches in my throat, I hearing him sing the words beside me.
God could speak to me in the thunder and lightning, but I find comfort and peace in the whispered words of a God whose compassion runs too deep to leave me standing there alone.
So, when you can hear nothing else, listen. Listen for the still, small voice of God.