Do you remember the story of the Old Testament prophet Elijah, hiding from Queen Jezebel? He was cowering in a cave when he heard God’s voice: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
The story is found in 1 Kings 19:9-18. God told Elijah to go stand out on the mountain, where a series of amazing things happened.
First, there was a powerful wind that tore the mountain apart. That was followed by an earthquake, then a fire. The Bible says that God was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire. With everything else that we can read about God, we would think that He would have spoken through at least one of those ways. But He didn’t.
The reason is that God does not always work in the manner we think He should. The Scripture tells us that after the fire, there was a “still, small voice,” or as some translations put it, “a gentle whisper.”
With great insight into our human natures, Arthur DeKruyter has written, “If we had been with Elijah in the cave, waiting for God to speak, we probably would have rushed into the earthquake and tossed around a few rocks ourselves. We would have huffed and puffed along with the windstorm God sent. We would have been so busy talking about things that we probably wouldn’t even have heard the still, small voice when He did speak!”
When God doesn’t do things our way, we have several options:
One, we can blame Him for not paying attention to what is really going on in our lives.
Two, we can question His love for us, telling ourselves that He is too big and impersonal to care about us.
Three, we can ignore the whole situation, and convince ourselves that it will go away in time.
Or four, we can believe that our Heavenly Father loves His children far too much to ignore our pleas for help.
By far, the fourth option is the best. Because His ways are higher than our ways, He doesn’t always do things the way we think He should. Our ideas are too narrow, our vision too limited and our imaginations too cramped to fully comprehend the wondrous ways of God.
In the meantime, just trust Him. And listen very carefully for that gentle whisper. Because God doesn’t always do it the way we think He should.
--Rocky Henriques, www.uticabc.com