Seeking God in Silence

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”

3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.

And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

15 The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him." (1 Kings 19:1-18, NIV)


REFLECTIONS:
First, the back story… When we meet Elijah, a prophet of the LORD, he predicts to Ahab, the King of the northern kingdom of Israel, that "there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word" (1 Kings 17:1). This action seems to add fuel to the long-standing enmity between Elijah and Jezebel, Ahab's wife and a worshiper of Baal, who ordered the murder of the prophets of the LORD. After this prediction, God sends Elijah into the wilderness for the first time, to a place so remote that the ravens have to feed him. But while Ahab's kingdom suffers the terrible drought, God provides for Elijah, first through the ravens and a nearby stream and then through a widow living in a town close by.

After a time, God tells Elijah that the drought will cease and instructs him to present himself to Ahab. At this meeting, Elijah tells Ahab that he has "abandoned the LORD’s commands and have followed the Baals" (18:18). Elijah then challenges Ahab to gather all Israel and the prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mount Carmel. On Mount Carmel, Elijah gives the people a choice: follow Baal or the LORD. No one says a word. Elijah then asks the people to bring him two bulls, one for himself and one for the prophets of Baal. Elijah and the prophets lay there bulls on the wood. The prophets call on Baal to provide the fire for their sacrifice; Elijah calls on the LORD.

But when the prophets call on Baal, nothing happens: "But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention" (18:29). In contrast, when Elijah prepares the altar and praise to the LORD, "the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench" (18:38). The people of Israel fall on their faces and shout: "The LORD—he is God. The LORD—he is God." Elijah has the people take the prophets of Baal to the Kishon Valley, where he kills them. Then he tells Ahab to go home and eat and drink because the drought will be ending, a message that is confirmed when Elijah's servant sees "a clown as small as a man's hand" rising out of the sea (18:44). When Ahab arrives at the Palace, he tells Jezebel "everything Elijah had done," which sets in motion Jezebel's angry message to Elijah and his second flight into the wilderness.

Perhaps the wilderness appeals to Elijah because of his earlier experience, when God provided for him in a similarly lonely place. In any case, he needs to escape Jezebel's threat, so he travels south over 90 miles to the wilderness beyond Beer-sheba, where he recovers from the showdown with the prophets of Baal and his long trip and has another intimate encounter with God.

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The first thing we notice in the story of Elijah is that his public life as a prophet was balanced with times of "hiddenness." His life thus had a certain balance. Between encounters with Ahab and the prophets of Baal, we see Elijah spending times of solitude in a faraway place. This is a pattern we see throughout the Bible. From God speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai to Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, God uses private time in a desolate place to prepare those he chooses for leadership roles. There are other clear parallels between the three stories. Not only is the time period of forty days and forty nights repeated—the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, the time it took Moses to write down God's covenant, the time it took Elijah to travel to the cave—but Elijah's cave was on the same mountain where God gave the law of Moses. In each case, time in the quiet of the wilderness strengthened the person for the challenges ahead.

We also see that Elijah's time in the wilderness prepared him for his encounter with the Lord. In the solitude of the wilderness, he had no choice but to depend upon the Lord for his sustenance, both food and rest. Although Elijah, like us, was dependent on God at all times, it was easier to pay attention to that fact when other distractions were removed. Elijah could not fail to notice God's provisions in the wilderness near Beer-sheba, one of the few places in Judah with nourishing plant life and wild animals. In addition to food and rest, Elijah found silence for the nurture of his soul. It was far from the din of Baal's prophets pleading with their god to set fire to their sacrifice. 

Elijah's story also teaches us that time spent alone in silence and solitude can be difficult but restorative, as well. Even after God triumphed over the prophets of Baal, when Jezebel threatened Elijah's life, Elijah became discouraged and filled with despair. Much like us when hard times hit, he gave us: "I have had enough, LORD. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors" (19:4). The encounter with the prophets of Baal and the journey to the wilderness of Beer-sheba had exhausted him, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. It took two meals for Elijah to gain the physical strength to make the forty day journey to Mount Horeb (Sinai). From all indications, he was still not quite ready for God to appear to him after his arrival, because he needed to rest that night in a cave. But despite his discouragement and depression, the solitude and silence of the journey and the night in the cave prepared Elijah to listen for God.

In the end, God's voice was heard in the silence. God is in the silence. Silence can be heard. This may be a foreign concept for us today in the midst of a culture that values noise over silence, but those of us who grew up on farms and ranches and in rural areas know it is true. Silence is palpable. "… and after the fire came a gentle whisper" (verse 12). Some Bibles translate the phrase "a gentle whisper" (NIV) as "sheer silence" (NRSV). The sheer silence that surrounded Elijah was filled with God's presence. And in this silence Elijah heard God's voice.

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The story of Elijah's experience in the wilderness speaks to the power of finding God through time spent in solitude and silence. God uses silence to prepare us for ministry, to speak to us. Yet most of us set aside embarrassingly little time to stop talking about it and actually be quite with God. Our situations may be very different from that of Elijah, whose last resort was to go into the silence of the wilderness to save his own life. But being so trapped in the everyday responsibilities of life that we don't feel like we can "waste" time being silent before God can be just as desperate a situation. Without periods of silence, our souls shrivel up and die. We may not be facing physical death like Elijah did, but we come face-to-face with spiritual atrophy when our lives are filled with constant noise from which there is no respite.

Maybe we find so many excuses because to be alone with nothing but the sound of our own souls is, frankly, a frightening prospect. In the quiet we can no longer avoid complicated questions about the direction of our lives or more frightening topics, like our own mortality. When we are no longer talking, God can direct our thoughts in the way he wishes, not the way we wish. It is yet another way of giving up the reins of our life to God—not something many of us are very good at. Deep down, however, we all know that he is the only one we can trust with our lives. "For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him" (Psalm 62:5).


POINT OF ACTION:
Today, try to set aside at least ten minutes just to sit before God. Choose a place where there is as little noise as possible—and quietly sit. Don't read. Try not to look out a window. Imagine that you are in Elijah's cave. If you've never done this before, it will be hard to keep your mind from talking about what you should be doing, the time you're wasting, and the deadlines you have to meet. It is time to make that nagger within—that voice that's always harping, "Do this, do that"—obey you. Quietly, silently, give this chatter to the Lord. After the chatter has died down, focus on listening. If you hear something, don't write it down, because this is time to "waste" for the Lord. If you fall asleep, don't feel bad! Maybe God wanted to give you some needed rest. Try again tomorrow.

If it feels right, seek to carry the silence over into your daily routine. Be cautious about speaking. Say only what is needed in every conversation. If you have a job that requires a lot of talking, take a minute or so every hour to cease all conversation. Shut the door to your office if you have to, or go for a short walk. As you're going about your day, seek to continually monitor how you feel about "wasting" time for God and refraining from talking.


PRAYER:
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all day long.

“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
    Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Give ear to my words, O Lord;
    give heed to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.

WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom, and I must admit that it's quite hard to find a "quiet place" in our life right now. I'm sure it's the same for you, as well. I'll state the obvious, as those who are already parents know, but kids change everything! Even when we're not busy with anything, Benjamin and Abby are constantly making noise. Singing songs, making play noises, laughing, crying, asking the same questions again and again and again and again and yet again. But, as difficult as it may be to find times of quiet, I believe it's essential to our spiritual health and well-being. I've got a quiet spot in our backyard that I try to retire to on occasions when the kids are napping or away from home. I'm looking forward to heading there soon…