Theological Commentary: Click Here
One of my
favorite aspects about God’s Word is that it shows us human imperfection in the
midst of God’s perfection. Yesterday we
got to see God’s power on display. This
led us to see the greater point of the chapter, which is that we should worship
God. The sacrifice story is all about reminding
us that we should worship God.
Yet, what happens
in this chapter? Jezebel, Ahab’s wife
and the greater follower of Ba’al, hears about the sacrifice story and the
slaughter of the prophets of Ba’al. She
vows to kill Elijah.
What does
Elijah do? He runs away. He fears for his life. He flees and begins to despair. His fear completely gets the better of
him! He just saw the power of God on
display in dramatic fashion, and the very next moment we see him running away
from a simple pagan queen.
Further
proof to me that yesterday’s chapter isn’t about the power as much as it is
about worshipping God.
Elijah goes
and meets God in a cave. Notice that
Elijah hasn’t lost his faith, though. He’s
just afraid. He can recognize God. God isn’t in the powerful earthquake. He isn’t in the powerful storm. He isn’t in powerful fire. Where is God?
Elijah recognizes God in the peaceful calm. In the midst of his fear, God gives Elijah
exactly what he needs: peace.
This is what
I find so inspirational about reading God’s Word. First, God is perfect and He deserves to be
the subject of our worship. Second, God
calls imperfect people. Elijah doesn’t
lose his faith, but he does react imperfectly.
He reacts out of his humanity. Time and time again we see that the
people that God chooses are human beings like you and me.
God forgives
Elijah because he doesn’t lose his faith.
God isn’t looking for perfection, He is looking for faithfulness. When we make mistakes, God simple wants us to
remain in relationship with Him and seek His ways – even if it means we have to
fix a mistake that we make in our humanity.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment