If we’re listening, the gentle voice of God will drown out the rantings of our wicked enemies.
There’s little doubt Elijah had hit bottom, there under a tree in the Sinai wilderness: “He prayed that he might die, and said, ‘It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!’” (1 Ki 19:4). Of course, there’s a great gulf between asking the Lord to take your life and actually taking it yourself. But it’s a shocking thing when we discover that, in spite of our high hopes, we are no improvement on the last generation. It seems his ministry had vanished like the altar at Carmel. But the Lord knows that, when you’re seriously discouraged, sometimes it helps to have a good sleep (v 5) and then have something wholesome to eat (v 6). How tenderly the Angel of the Lord—more than likely the Son of God— cares for His disheartened servants. “For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Ps 103:14). Following that, he journeyed further south, “forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God” (v 8). This is Mount Sinai, where the Lord first appeared to Moses. Was Elijah looking for a fresh vision of God? When asked by the Lord, “What are you doing here?” (v 9), his answer reflects his frustration and disappointment, perhaps even with the Lord. Was his zeal, sacrifice, loneliness, and risk all for nothing? The Lord directs him out of the cave where he spent the night to stand exposed to the elements. A tornado, earthquake, and fire swirl around him, but God is not in any of them. The maelstrom dies away, and then he hears “a still small voice” (v 12). Again the question: “What are you doing here?” How often the spectacular things of life fizzle away, the momentary excitement dies. But it’s enough if you have “a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’” (Isa 30:21).