Day 3603 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Kings 19:9 NIV

A life lived lost living inside what seems a cave of concern and miscommunication, both of which are all only ours as neither are even feasible in regard to what our faith should find.

For faith feels not concern, at least the kind considered within this passage of a prophet pressing deeper into any way possible to avoid the perceived potential of what seems a promised pain. And nor does faith consider the rain of a life lived within a world of such pain all but persistently promised to be as easily misconstrued as to make us lose our sight of the purpose of this plight into what feels mostly only a night in which life grows darker in a world already entirely too dim. And thus we make our den inside the desire to deny the fire the opportunity to prove our faith so feeble as we know it might be.

And thus, like Elijah, we too steal into caves carved of fear and worry and wanting to only avoid the both as we know well what they and the many problems like them will provide should we not try to hide.

Indeed, within this passage we read of Elijah being faced with the entirely proven precariousness of a persecution already well underway. Verse 2 of this 19th chapter of 1 Kings defines the dilemma from which Elijah is running, and in this verse here, in fact hiding in what is a legitimate cave. “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Said Jezebel (of whom you may have heard), to this man of God who’d recently, let’s just say, become quite the stench of offense to her ways of intense wickedness.

Yes, in chapter 18 of this book of 1 Kings we read of the spiritual war fought by Elijah against what were 450 prophets of Baal. See, the people of that time and place had made themselves slaves to Baal, and who knows what all other falsities and foolishness. And Elijah, as what he proclaimed himself unto them at this scene up upon Mount Carmel, was the last of Lord’s prophets left alive. And well, you can imagine the odds as this rare oddity left of what was seemingly now an antiquated life of a sadly now foreign faith stood opposed to the commonality of this new irrationality.

Let us go to the bulls!

And indeed they did. These opposed groups, the lone Elijah as left, well, alone, against the 450 counterparts of what was an entirely different belief, they resorted to each side of this divine divide offering a bull as a sacrifice to their differing deities in order to prove unto those many watching on just who was right and who thus was not. They agreed to offer these sacrifices in the same manner, and Elijah was even kind enough to let those followers of the false god Baal to be the first batters up.

Only do not light the fire, refuse to fan the flame, rather call upon your god and let us see him prove his name by igniting the fire that burns to flame that takes away this gift you’re offering unto his fame.

Nothing.

The people sang and danced and made a right spectacle trying to incite their faith to bring this miracle needed to prove their god the only true thereof. Nothing. And this lack of show by this god they claimed to know enough to follow, it brought about what will forever be one of my personal favorite moments of Biblical comedy. Verse 27: “At noon Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.’”

I suppose I’m just a sucker for a bit of classical mockery.

Anyway, nothing still. No, their god didn’t respond. Not even when these prophets of the now proof-less began to turn their singing into shouting and even there further when they restored to this practice in which they “slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.”

No, this false god didn’t even respond to that. Because false gods are known for that, you know, having come to evidence the substance of, say, Psalm 115:4-8. “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”

It’s that last line that proved here quite ironic in the end.

For again, these now defeated prophets of the pretend, well, they were led down into the Kishon Valley and once there all slaughtered. Lifeless just as their false god had proven to be at the hands of our God who did as Baal couldn’t and proved Himself via the consuming fire that burned up that bull that Elijah had offered, and that despite even the wood and the sacrifice itself having been soaked in water, making thus this fire from Heaven even more miraculous amongst them.

And yet, this verse for today is found within the next chapter of 1 Kings, chapter 19. It’s where the queen of those prophets just annihilated vows revenge upon this lone man of the Lord who’d seen to their slaughter. She vows, as quoted above, to make sure that Elijah is left just like them. And yet, having seen all that God has just done up upon that mountain in which He overcame the doubt of so many in order to turn them all from their false faith in a fake God, even still Elijah was presented a situation precarious.

And he ran.

As we do. That’s been something on my mind and thus within these posts over the past few days spent storming into this new year. It’s this reality that the dangers of life and the problems we’ll face and the storms of chaos and calamity will indeed storm right back at us at times within the up ahead of what has begun as, once again, an excitement in regard to a calendar change. Alas, it seems that all such excitements as new year elations are bound to do as they’ve always done and leave us all alone as life proves itself the war that life has always been.

For parties end, victories wane, pride fades and problems replace it. Even happened to Elijah who is one of the big names in the Bible. Simply because to fear is to be human and to be human is to be alive in a world in which life is sometimes scary and often hard and plenty sad and even deadly it seems. That’s what Elijah has run from in this passage recounting his passage into this portal in which he assumed a sense of safety from the storm waiting outside as blown in the wrath of Jezebel.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

That question is one that feels entirely too personal considering I don’t share the prophet’s name. And that’s because it’s not about the name but rather the choice. Because it’s one that we all make far more often than we’d likely care to confess. We all hide in life. We seek out safety, often in seclusion, where we feel that we’ll not be found by what we don’t want to face or feel for sake of imagining all the ways in which we might fall or fail. For such is life, a war as we’ve been talking of late.

For it never stops coming. It never seems to ease or find us having arrived at that place in which we’re safe and secure, unable to be harmed or face hardship. No, life is hardship, life is harmful, life here is indeed often hateful. And granted, perhaps not to the point of having some wicked queen vow to end our life, but some of these trials we face sure seem as if they might. And thus we hide. And true, perhaps not in actual caves the likes of that into which Elijah chose to invade.

But do all the semantics really matter?

No, for the point is proven within the point and purpose God is presenting within His asking Elijah what he was doing. It’s a question easily asked of us too, is it not? What are we doing? Why are we hiding? Why all this time spent trying to find a way to continue avoiding this clear and present danger as having often presented itself entirely too possible? Is this not why we hate the things we talked about yesterday? Changes and having to make them alongside plans and having to change them?

Because change is itself something of this Jezebel in that is demands alteration to the status quo by which we’ve become comfortable. And our plans we make, they’re our caves in which we hide as we tinker away at all the ways in which we can avoid the rain, the pain, the problems, the strain of what is a life lived and lost in strife as it’s lived within a world lost in the night of even more false gods and fake hopes than ever before.

And yet we, just like Elijah, we claim to have seen enough of God to know enough of who He is to know that we can trust in Him. Why then the hiding? Why the caves in which we stow away making plans and avoiding change? Why all the fear if we know that He is near? Why do we allow this world and the wars we face and the worries we wage whilst here to distract us from knowing He’s there? Are our problems and persecutions truly able to overcome Him?

Or do we just know better what it is to resort to that mindset in which what we see is better able to define what we believe?

Elijah replied within the next verse, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” Tell me that doesn’t feel entirely close to home these days as well! For still we live in a world that makes sport of those who believe. And thus still do we feel often all alone within this place in which our faith is still vastly considered foolishness to those many more who deny they’re perishing.

We watch the world mock our King, even now making movies where satan is given a stage at Christmas time. And at the grammys. And in music videos. And on signs as protests. And in actions undertaken against people just living their life and not bothering anyone. And in every other heinous act of horror and hatred as seen entirely too commonly, so common in fact that it feels most days if we’ve indeed arrived upon that time in which He said that the love of most would grow cold. Yes, seems there’s little love anymore, and thus the safety it offers feels to fade by the day as well.

And well, while it seems not only one but a good one at that, is any of it really a reason to run? To hide? To cower inside some cave of confusion, of concern, of consternation or some newfound fear of miscommunication accidentally offending the wrong person who becomes then the queen set upon our blood shed?

No, it’s not a reason at all as this isn’t all there is to all of this. This life is, as far as I can surmise, it’s just our battlefield. This world is our war. This time is ours to lose, how we lose it though is what tells the story of not only who we are but what we believe and even that why. And I’m not saying that we should live as if we’re invincible, so much as to step over that line in which we all but ask God to prove Himself by protecting us from problems we choose to invite into our lives.

He’s not there to help us walk safely through oncoming traffic.

Rather He’s there with a purpose that we are here to walk out within this world that will not understand it. We’ll not even understand it sometimes. Because, friends, fact is that it may indeed unfold as the will He had for Elijah. And sometimes, like with another big Biblical name, Jonah, we’ll almost prefer the belly of a whale as opposed to going somewhere we don’t want to go in order to do something we don’t want to do simply because we know that saying what He asks us to say will only come across wrong and leave us once again the crosshairs we don’t want to live in anymore.

It doesn’t matter what we see or how scary it seems. For this is God’s story, and whether we can picture it or not, it is all written for His glory. And yet friends, so too was the Bible in which we read of Elijah, of Jonah, of Daniel, of the three turned four inside the fire. But it’s also the same story in which we read of how they all survived in order to prove God’s power and providence and provision for His people. It all just comes down to not only what we see and what we hear but also what we acknowledge and what we listen to.

What are you doing here? What are you listening to? What sights are you acknowledging? Do you spend more time listening to the threats such as that issued against Elijah that inspired him into hiding? Or do you rather spend more time trying to hear only the whisper of God’s hope as found only in a life lived to Him honor? Do you see only the storms that are coming, the wars that are raging, the problems you’re facing and the failures you already see unfolding because of your inability to face it all and somehow survive?

Or do you see only the cross and count there only the cost of a life lost to ensure that, even if we lose this one, we lose nothing if we’re found in Him?

I know this is undoubtedly one of those things that’s far easier said than done. But that’s been a point I’ve been trying to get across over the past few posts. Maybe this year we can do something different, and maybe in that, different enough that we don’t do quite so much hiding from life anymore. I don’t know that any of us can ever be or become so bold as to ache for the furnaces to be heated seven times over or the lions to skip one more meal before we introduce ourselves or the walls we come against to be just a little bit taller, maybe thicker too.

No, but maybe we can ask God to increase our faith, and in that, that He help us learn to trust His doing so when it’s done in ways in which we can’t see our survival. Maybe we can stop worrying so much about surviving. And in that, maybe we can start to do a little more thriving, or at least allow our faith to for once. Because the fact is that fear may well be a part of our lives here until we’re not here. We may always carry such things as worry or doubt or these imaginations that always find a way to design the worst possible outcomes.

But maybe we can also find a little more of that faith that faces a little more of those things that seem scary or dangerous or confusing. Maybe we can do a little less hiding, a little less worrying, a little less complaining about the overall difficulty and deadliness of life as lived here. Won’t be easy, but who ever said war was?

No, life is still a battle, and thus it’s something that we’ll all have to decide to either continue running from or to rather step to the edge of our concerns and considerations in a wonder as to what God might be trying to show us that’s only found after the wind, after the earthquake, after the storm, just beyond the suck and the sacrifice and the suffering and the terror and the tearing and the tragedy of a life lived in a world that loves the turmoil and triviality.

Yes, maybe we can only best see God inside the aftermath of every storm, every battle, every challenge, every change, every bit of chaos into which He so often leads us. For maybe as much as life is often a battle, maybe it’s also a forge in which we’re hardened and strengthened and toughened into the type who can actually walk by faith despite the fear we’ll feel.

For again, maybe fear will always be a part of life as lived here. But maybe the point of faith is to tell that fear to take a hike sometimes so that we can stand in the wide open willing to welcome whatever war or weight this life may bring our way.

And so, what are you doing here? And is it what you ought to be doing, what you want to keep doing?

Or is it that maybe God’s asking you to put your faith where your fear is so that you can see Him move in ways that make soaking bulls engulfed in flames seem quite ordinary if not mundane?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold