My Favorite Story

In IKings 19, we are given, what I think, is one of the greatest stories in the Bible.

It really began in Ch. 18 when Elijah was at the altar and facing off against the prophets of Baal; Elijah was to build the altar and fill it with the offering, build a trench and fill the trench with water, then drench the altar with water as well. he did these things; but, not after the Baal prophets had exhausted themselves trying to get their false god to answer, Elijah even began to taunt them he was so sure of what God was going to do. When God did burn the wood, the offering, all the water, and even the altar itself, Elijah went so far as to have the prophets taken to a nearby stream and killed! Elijah had to have been so full of God's power and authority at this point, even full of himself, yet, when Queen Jezebel, wanted him dead, he ran for his life! He never even looked back, he just ran and hoped he could find a hole big enough to hide himself in, then pull the hole in after him.
He ran to Beersheba, left his servant there and traveled for yet another day into the desert; At this point, he starts to do the one thing that pretty much every human is guilty of:we start feeling sorry for ourselves. Everybody hates us, nobody likes, we're gonna go eat worms...etc. He started to cry out to God, looking for pity I suppose, and got a lesson instead. In vs. 4 we hear Elijah asking God to just take his life and get it over with. He fell asleep and an angel came along and woke him up to eat, then travel. When Elijah got to a cave at Mt Horeb, he tried to present his "case" before God; How he had done so much to help prove God's existance, killed a good many false prophets, and yet , here he stood, all alone, with no one to stand beside him, no one to help him, and wondering why God would lead him to such things only to leave him to die at the hands of such people?!
God commanded him to go stand on a hill and wait for Him; God passed by and a huge wind came by and tore rocks from the mountain, then an earthquake, and after that a fire, but, God's voice was not in any of those things; It was after the fire that a still, small, voice came and THAT was God's voice!

2 things I look at when I read this: 1)God does not compete with anything! His voice is there for us to hear, but only if we determine in our hearts and minds, make a conscious decision, to turn everything and everyone off so that only God's voice is heard. Only then can we even know that He is even speaking . 2) God is the creator of everything that is, His "plate" is , by far, more full than anything we can ever imagine, and He takes the time out to teach an individual. He looks at this frail, fault ridden human, and puts them on a "hill" so they may see things more clearly, and makes sure they understand He still loves them regardless of their faults and frailties. God wants to take the time to be with each of us, and teach us according to the frailties we have, not punish us for them.

Is it any wonder that I love God so much?