A Still, Small Voice

STILLNESS 

1 Kings 19:11-13 – “The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

Reflections: I realized something interesting today… Sometimes, I’m so focused on looking for God’s answer to my prayer(s) to come in one specific form that I actually miss it when He shows up and responds to my petition. Just the other day, I’d been praying to God for a solution to a particular challenge, and in my mind, I’d already envisioned what that solution would look like. I prayed about it for the better part of the week, and set about waiting and looking for God’s response. But while I was looking in one direction for the reply I’d envisioned, His actual response came from a completely different direction in a form so unlike what I’d been expecting that at first, I did not recognize it for what it was. It was like God crept up quietly, like a ninja, and completely threw me for a loop! 🙂

It wasn’t until I was meditating this morning that I realized God had, in fact, taken care of the issue at hand without my truly registering it. The situation was resolved through no action of my own and in a way that was much more like a quiet whisper than the bigger, attention-grabbing bang that I was expecting.

I think that God often operates like that, with a quiet whisper instead of a big bang, and we must quiet ourselves and attune our Spirit to His peaceful stillness so that we can recognize and be grateful for the subtle blessings and responses to our petitions when they come. It’s also important to acknowledge that God’s answers to our prayers often come in a completely different form than we imagine as we pray; but that’s okay, because God knows so much better than we do the solution for which each situation calls. And I’m so glad that He’s a God who gives us what He knows we need instead of what we think we want; because in the end, we’re so much better off if we do things His way instead of our own. 🙂

Thoughts, reactions, or testimonies? Leave a comment below. I look forward to hearing from you!

Shine Bright! 🙂