Sometimes the preacher goes through a silent spell, when s/he has to wait for the voice of the Lord.  Today, my mind is reflecting on the journey of Elijah after gaining a great victory on Mt. Carmel against King Ahab and his 450 prophets of Baal.  While in the midst of a great depression, with Jezebel threatening to kill him within 24 hours, and feeling as if he was the only one, God ushered him to a cave where he waited to hear from God.

He experienced a windstorm, an earthquake, and a fire but yet did not hear the Lord in the midst of these.  I am learning that we sometimes go through situations where we cannot clearly hear God speaking so that we learn to pay attention to things we ordinarily would ignore or take for granted.  When Elijah heard God, he heard him in a soft whisper, not in the midst of the chaos he experienced.

Sometimes we go through periods of depression, distortion, and disappointment we must learn to listen for the whisper.  When we feel as though we are all alone and no one can relate to what we are feeling and thinking, we can find encouragement in the small whisper that reminds us that God will never leave us nor will He forsake us.  It is in these moments that we find strength to keep going when chaos has ripped apart our sanity because of the God we serve.  I wasn’t there with Elijah, but I can imagine when he heard this whisper he thought about how God fed him by the brook through a raven and gave him resources with a poor widow during a season of famine.