Scripture Notes: The Small Things (1 Kings 19)

Elijah is exhausted. On the run from Queen Jezebel after killing her 450 pet prophets of Baal, the prophet of God simply wants to throw in the towel. Enough is enough, he tells God, just kill me now. But that is decidedly not God’s plan for Elijah. Far from it. Instead, God sends an angel with food and drink and instructions. Elijah must go to Mount Horeb, the very place where Moses had entered the shekinah, the glory cloud, and received the Law from God.

Elijah gets up, eats and drinks, and obeys, traveling forty days and forty nights to Horeb. When he gets there, he tucks himself into a cave and waits. He is still rather pouty, for when God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” the prophet complains that he is the only one left who is worshiping God in all of the northern kingdom of Israel. Everyone wants to kill him. It is a very big deal, and he feels like a very small man.

God tells Elijah to go stand on the mountain before the Lord. Elijah obeys. A great wind whips through, breaking rocks in its wake. Then an earthquake shakes the place where the prophet stands. Then a fire roars by. But God is not in any of these major catastrophic events. Elijah is still standing somehow, and soon he hears a small sound, a tiny voice. He hides his face in his cloak, for God is present in that small voice.

God asks again, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Once again, the prophet whines that he is the only one left loyal to God and that everyone wants to kill him. At that point, God reveals that it is not so. There are, He says, seven thousand people in Israel who do not worship Baal. Elijah is not alone. And he still has tasks to do. They may seem like small things, simply anointing the right people, but they will make a huge difference in the history of Israel and the world. And as small as he is, there will be other small people who love and worship God, and together, they will be great because God is great, even when He speaks in that small voice.