Finding God in the silence
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Joanna Moss:
What did I like about today’s passage?
Elijah’s experience of God on Mount Sinai is one of my favourite stories in the Bible. Like any good story, it has an unexpected ending. The beginning of today’s reading continues straight on from Elijah’s dramatic revealing of God’s power, yet Elijah’s demeanor from yesterday to today’s passage could not be more different.
Evidently, Elijah expected a different reaction from Jezebel and Ahab after the grand bonfire display and is surprised to receive a death threat instead of repentance. Things hadn’t gone as Elijah had planned and instead of trusting it to God, Elijah runs away and lets fear and disappointment take over. I know I have done the same thing myself – when God has acted in a way I didn’t expect, I have chosen to run from Him rather than to Him. This shows me that, just like Elijah in this moment, instead of actually trusting in God, I am trusting in who I think God is or should be.
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
That God is always present and at work, it’s just most often not in the way I expect.
Just as with God’s appearance on the mountain, I often want God’s response to be loud and obvious. I want to see sweeping change and instant answers, but God shows us that that’s not how He works. As is so often with God’s Kingdom, God works in the complete opposite way to what we expect. Firstly, He shows us that it is His quiet voice in the stillness that has the greatest power to bring change. And secondly, that it is when we perceive that nothing is happening that He is actually at work, as it is in the waiting and in the silence that God works on our hearts first before working in our physical situation.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I am not the most patient person; I would rather be doing than waiting. After all, waiting is a waste of time. However, I am keenly aware that God has a very different perspective on waiting and places a high value on patience. As I let God work on my impatient spirit, I want to better embrace silence and stillness in my quiet times with God. As much as I know that it is in resting and waiting that I can hear more from God, I want to be actually practicing this more often.
Who am I going to share this with?
My brother and his girlfriend who are not Christian. As we (hopefully) have more conversations about who God is, I want to be able to share with them that the God of Bible is likely to be very different to who they think God is.