In this podcast, I explore the story of God directing Elijah to go to a desert for silence and solitude. Under the rule of Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, idolatry in Israel reaches an all-time high. In their attempt to stamp out worship of Yahweh completely, they exile and kill a large number of the Lord’s prophets. And Elijah finds himself alone and under enormous pressure.
Elijah is told by God to wait for the presence of the Lord to pass by. But God does not appear in ways he had showed up in the past. Instead he comes in a new way. God is not in the wind (as with Job), an earthquake (as when he gave the 10 Commandments at Mt. Sinai), or fire (as in the burning bush with Moses). God reveals himself to Elijah in “a gentle whisper,” which is better translated from the original Hebrew as “a sound of sheer silence.”
The silence and solitude amidst the chaos, for Elijah, are full of the presence of God. From that place he hears God in a new and powerful way. In the same way, silence and solitude offer new ways for many of us to meet God, enabling us to provide the kind of clear leadership our world so desperately needs.
This podcast includes both a brief introduction and a message that I gave a number of years ago that shifted not only my personal life, but the direction of our church as well.
