Saturday, June 2, 2012

1 Kings 18:1 - Wk 1 Day 7

After a long time,
In the third year,
The word of the Lord
Came to Elijah.
1 Kings 18:1

One of the classic books in Christian lore is St. John of Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul.

Imagine being a devoted follow of God … imagine hearing from him deeply, personally, and regularly … and then imagine hearing nothing. Nothing! For days … weeks … months … years. What would you call that silence, that emptiness? A “dark night of the soul”?

When Pastor Chotka was here, I was taken by how regularly he “heard” from God. He didn’t express encounters proudly. He constantly, humbly, ponderingly checked them out: “Here’s what I’m hearing. How does that feel to you?”

I began to wonder? How do you learn to know that voice that fully? And then I remember his story for Day 5. Driving through the mountains of British Columbia, crying, it was his biggest crisis in ministry. It was his “dark night of the soul.” It was his moment of “it is hard to preach the Bible … when you are not sure its promises apply to your own life anymore.” Prayer “wasn’t a two-way communication” anymore.

How do you learn to know God voice fully? Maybe it takes a season of listening … and then a season of silence … and then a season of powerful and plentiful communication. Maybe the silences help us hear! Indeed, according to our verse today, Elijah was the greatest of the prophets, and yet God was silent with him for three years. But then what? God’s power broke through in new and powerful ways.

If you’re not hearing from God, one of several things might be happening …

·         This might be a God imposed season of silence (yuck!) before a God imposed season of bigger blessing (yay!).
·         It might mean that you’re out-of-alignment (my devotion from yesterday) or too-far-from-obedience (Power Praying’s Lesson for today).
·         It most probably means that your life is too busy and too noisy and you need to sit before God in greater stillness.

In Christ’s Love,
a guy who still needs
to be more still

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