Word of Encouragement (06/06/2024)
“And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. 9 There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" 10 He said, "I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:8-10)
Let’s go back and reflect on God’s question to Elijah: “What are you doing here, Elijah” (v. 9)? God’s questions are never for information because He is omniscient. When God asked Adam, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9), it was not because He did not know where Adam and Eve were; He knew that they were hiding among the trees of the garden on account of the shame that beset them after the Fall. He was giving Adam to come clean and confess what he had done.
God was doing something similar with Elijah. He knew exactly what Elijah was doing in Horeb. After all, it was He, who brought him to Horeb, supplying him with the strength he needed to make the forty-day journey (v. 8). So, there was a sense in which Elijah was exactly where God wanted him to be (according to God’s eternal counsel). What God was asking was not the questions of where and what. Often, these are the questions about which we are most concerned. But, by asking this question, God wanted Elijah to think about why he was doing what he was doing, or how he ended up in the situation he was in.
If God were to ask you, “What are you doing here, ___?” what would you say? You may wonder whether you are where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to do. Sometimes you want to be anywhere but there, doing anything but what you are doing. But the question of why is more important. There was a sense in which Elijah was not supposed to in Horeb. Out of fear and unbelief (which are closely connected), he ran for his life when Jezebel threatened to kill him. His fear and unbelief got him to be where he was. But there was another sense in which Elijah was exactly where God predestined him to be. No matter how fast and far he ran, he could never outrun God’s predestination.
Though Elijah was running out of fear and unbelief, we can see how God was with Elijah every step of the way. Not happy with how things were going, Elijah’s heart was filled with disappointment and bitterness toward God. So, he complained to God and asked Him to take his life (v. 4). Yet, God allowed him to sleep and get rest. He also fed him through an angel, twice (vv. 5, 7). And He directed him to come to Mount Horeb.
It is comforting to know that God will never leave or forsake those who are His even when they let go of Him. We often go astray like one lost sheep. But our good Shepherd is willing to leave the ninety-nine sheep to seek and save the one lost sheep. He is gracious and able enough to do so. “We had wandered, we all had wandered / Far from the fold of “the Shepherd of the sheep”; / But He sought us where we were, / On the mountains bleak and bare, / And bro’t us home, and bro’t us home, / And bro’t us safely home to God.”
Yet, He asks, “My lost sheep, what are you doing here?” We may be where we are not supposed to be, doing what we are not supposed to do (from the perspective of God’s revealed will [i.e., His law], but never from the perspective of God’s secret will—God is still working out His purpose without fail). But even when we are where we are supposed to be, doing what we are supposed to do, we may not be doing it for the right reasons. I hope that we can all have the assurance that we are where we are supposed to be, doing what we are supposed to do for the right reasons—for God’s glory and the good of others. If we don’t have that assurance, may God grant us the spirit of repentance to turn away from the place and work of sin and move toward God in faith and obedience.