How are you doing with your new year’s resolutions? Feeling like you’re in a wilderness where dreams go to die! I hope not! But as I said last time when I feel like I’m in that kind of wilderness, I’ve found it helpful to look at different bible character and how they coped with those season. We’ve seen Joseph and how he clung onto God. David and how he found a place of rest and refreshing in his relationship with God and this week we’re going to look at Elijah before finishing next week with Jesus.

Elijah was a prophet in Israel at the time of King Ahab and Jezebel. The nation is going after the god of Baal rather than the living God. So Elijah calls together the people and the priests of Baal to demonstrate that the Lord is the only true God. He facilitates an incredible move of God, who comes down with fire on the sacrifice he offers. 

This is the moment you expect there to be trumpets and a victory march with Elijah at the centre of the celebrations. But instead, we see him needing to run for his life and even asking God to take his life. 

Elijah undertakes a journey of about 260 miles to Mount Sinai. What a journey that must have been. He was in turmoil. I’m sure he was questioning whether he was doing God’s will and why, if he was, things had turned out like they had. 

Before he takes that journey, God gets him to do two things. First, sleep. Often, our depression can come from a place of exhaustion and what we really need is to rest. Then God sends an angel to feed him. He gave him bread, carbs to build him up! Another reason we can feel low is that we haven’t thought about what we’re putting into our bodies. 

This rhythm is repeated twice. God cared about Elijah’s mental and physical health. Only when he was ready did God allow Elijah to start his journey.

This man was low, can you imagine how lonely that journey must have felt? Walking alone in a desert, a barren land, only his thoughts for company and none of those were comforting. He had seen all the other prophets killed and now was the only one left. What a long road that would have been to walk. 

When he gets to Horeb he stays in a cave and God speaks to him. This is the God who has just brought fire down from heaven! He asks Elijah why he has come. Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because God wants a relationship! 

Elijah isn’t afraid to be honest with God about his fears and disappointments. God doesn’t reject him because of them, but meets with him in the midst of his pain. Even after he’s endured fire, earthquake and hurricane to hear the gentle whisper of God’s voice, Elijah feels the same. 

God’s solution isn’t an easy one. He’s told to go back the way he came. To walk back through the wilderness knowing God was with him. To know he wasn’t really alone the first time. Elijah’s wilderness season doesn’t end with a happily ever after, but it does end with an assurance that God is with him.

I think this is a helpful reminder to us that sometimes we need to be honest with God and with ourselves about how we’re feeling. 

Elijah’s time in the wilderness gave him the strength to go on. God gave him a next step so that he could leave it, knowing he wasn’t alone. 

Often when we’re in wilderness seasons, we can’t see the way ahead, and it may be that we want to hide our struggles from God and those we love. But if instead we speak to God and recognise that as the one who made us and planned our days, He is the only one who can help us, then we can find peace and a first step back into the world. God sent His son so that we could have His Spirit dwell within us. Meaning we can have a relationship with Him.

Let’s enjoy our privilege and learn to listen for the gentle whisper in the hurricane of life.