BETHANY BAPTIST CHURCH

After the fire, the sound of a low whisper and Elijah heard it… (I Kings 19:12b,13a)

I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. (Psalm 131:2)

Today's devotion is a repost of what I wrote a couple of years ago. You can occupy your mind with the images above and I guarantee they are such powerful images that you can spend an entire day contemplating the above two verses, and thoughts would rush into your mind from heaven. Times of disappointments create that chaos within us, such times immediately cause our eyes to focus on what’s going on around us. The moment we do that there is only more frustration waiting for us, we consider ourselves a failure; we think we are not doing anything significant; we think we don’t just fit into this place or city; we think we are just scum and what we do is just a waste; we think that we are not making any godly influence on anyone; we think that people truly don’t care; we hate how our Lord’s name is dishonored around us and we think we are just alone and odd in this world as no-good stuff for anyone. The ultimate result of such chaos in the heart is that we just want to quit and run away. That’s what exactly Elijah did in I Kings 19, a great man of God, who served the God of Israel wholeheartedly during the nation’s most turbulent times but looked around and wanted to die because he couldn’t take way in which Israel was dishonoring the most holy name of God and how he stood alone almost like a nobody. Yet in that same chapter, the Lord called Elijah to come and stand up on the mountain to hear the still small voice and the beauty is that Elijah had sharp ears to hear that voice (I Kings 19:13a). There it is, there’s the amazing lesson for me; when the storms of chaos swirls within me and crush me under the rock of disappointment, I need to ascend up to the mountain of God to hear his still small whispering voice. The only message then I hear from that still small voice of God is: Don’t quit, keep going, for the journey is still not over; don’t look at people but keep looking at me; don’t doubt because you are never alone.

This thought of I Kings 19 gets intensified in Psalm 131, an amazing Psalm of just three verses sitting there almost hidden amid the largest book of the Bible, but powerfully contributing to the thoughts of I Kings 19. I just saw that connection only yesterday as I continued my contemplation on I Kings 19 from Sunday onwards in my quiet time. The Psalmist says that he is not going to occupy his mind with great and lofty things that he cannot comprehend(vs.1) but he has learned to calm and quieten his soul to continue with what God has assigned for him to do. To make his point clear he uses the picture of a satisfied baby in the arms of a mother. That baby has no questions, no great debating skills, no great talents, no great power, and no significance in terms of accomplishments but all that the baby knows is ‘satisfied in the arms of a caring mother’.  May be that’s what the Lord wants you to learn too.

-Pastor