Day 4: The Whisper
11 “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
1 Kings 19: 11-13 (NLT)
The world is filled with noise. If you live in a busy city, you never really get to hear total quietness, and the soundtrack of car horns, police sirens and chatter holds an unlikely permanence in your life. Creativity can be born in the hype and madness of a crowd. It gives some people courage, but it also has its negatives: would you have got into that fight if the witnesses had not been there, egging you on? Did you need to harass that woman after she refused you her number, if not for the shame of being rejected in front of a crowd?
Interestingly, a lot of creative people take sabbaticals from the outside world when they want to work on a project. In order to complete his memoir, Barack Obama flew away to a remote cabin in Malaysia. To finish Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda shut himself away from the hubbub of New York, churning out the majority of the soundtrack to what would be one of the most important musicals in a generation in just a few short months.
New ideas are born in the quietness. It is also in the quietness that we can hear God’s voice. He was not in the earthquake or the windstorm or the fire. We shouldn’t try to look for God in the miracles and the excitement. It is during those times of sobriety, when it is just you alone, without the influence of friends or the emotions of an amazing song service in a church, that God’s voice can reach your ears. He spoke to Elijah in a whisper, and in the King James Version it is described as the “still, small voice”. And only after this cacophony had ceased, and God’s voice could be heard, did Elijah approach him again. And there, God asked him the same question. Elijah responds to God in the same way as he did in verse 10, but there is a difference now. He has heard God’s response, and now there is clarity in his mind.
When you are overwhelmed, listen to that still small voice.