"Our Expectations of God"
I Kings
The trombone quartet really sounds good this morning. When I first heard that they were playing today I felt sorry for them having to follow the flutists from last week. Adrienne and Laura did such a great job. I was thinking I sure wouldn't want to follow them but Steve and Jeff and Andrew and Jason have more than held their own. And as my wife often reminds me, not everything is a competition. On both Sundays it has been people using their talents for the glory of God.
As I studied the scripture reading for this week I was thinking that maybe we should have had the trombones last week and the flutes this week. The trombones could have played the theme from Rocky as Elijah entered the scene to compete against the prophets of Baal and as he was strutting around, taunting them they could have played the theme from Star Wars. And then the flutes could be the still small voice, the gentle breeze that we read about this week. It is difficult for the trombones to be a still, small voice. Of course they could represent the wind, the earthquake and the fire. Maybe we should have had the flutes come again today so that the trombones could have been the wind, earthquake and fire and the flutes could have represented the still, small voice.
The one problem with playing the Rocky theme last week when Elijah entered the picture would have been making Elijah the star of the story. It is God who is the one who brings the fire from heaven. And if this week we used the instruments to center on the wind, earthquake and fire and the still small voice we again would have missed the main point of the passage.
What we have before us today is not a hero but a burned out prophet. Maybe he was physically exhausted after his confrontation with the prophets of Baal. No one knows exactly what happened except that this man who demonstrated great faith in chapter 18, when he confronted the king Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal is now running in fear as he is threatened by the not very nice woman, Jezebel.
Many who read chapter 19 comment that Elijah showed signs of depression. He goes off by himself, leaving his servant behind. He appears to be a man without hope. He does not care whether he lives or dies. He is sleeping a lot and when he does wake up he is not excited about the new day. You may have noticed in verse 11 God tells Elijah to "Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord." And Elijah doesn't do it. He remains in the cave. He doesn't come out until after the earthquake, wind and fire pass through and he hears the still small voice, or the gentle breeze.
So what brought about the big change in this man. One of the things I wonder about in this story is if Elijah's expectations of God were not met. After the great victory over the prophets of Baal, maybe he thought the struggle was over, that it was time for him to be rewarded, that God would protect him from all harm. And there is Jezebel, threatening his life. He appears to not want anything more to do with this God. When our expectations of God are not met it is easy to allow our fears to overcome our faith.
If we pray for healing and our expectation is that God will heal us if we pray, we might run away from God like Elijah if we are not healed. We may not want anything more to do with this God. It may be that this is when we need God the most.
What we have before us is a picture of God continuing to reach out to Elijah, through an angel, through a still small voice. And Elijah continues to turn away. Even after the gentle breeze, after Elijah comes out of the cave he appears to be hopeless. For the second time God asks him what he is doing. And Elijah responds, "I don't really know. I am the only one left and they are after me. Once I am gone the story will be over."
And then God gives Elijah a mission, to go and anoint Hazael as king of
Maybe the question we all need to consider is this: What is God waking me up to today? Like Elijah, God has a purpose for us. What is it today? It may be praying, it may be tutoring children, it may be inviting someone to church, it may be sharing the love of Jesus with someone it may be calling a friend, it may be reaching out to a student at school, it may be helping colleague at work through a difficult time. Keeping in mind that just because we accomplish our task today does not mean that tomorrow is going to be easy. Just because we are people of great faith today does not mean that we will not be running in fear from Jezebel tomorrow.
The one thing we can be sure of is that this God will surround us with angels and this God will call us out of the cave and this God will do everything in his power to lead us in the direction we need to go. Tomorrow morning, when we wake up, may our first thought be "What is God waking me up to today?"