After God secluded Elijah, He spoke to him.
1 Kings 19:9b
And the word of the LORD came to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
Sometimes when we get in the pit or dry place in our lives, we want God to speak to us as to how to fix things. A friend of mine the other day said that if God would be like Charlie the Tuna commercial and just send a little note on a hook down to her, things would be much better for her! And yet, instead of giving us the "quick-fix" answer we desire, God gives us a question. "What are you doing in this barren and dry place?"
Now, do we follow a clueless God who did not know the answer? Absolutely not! So, if the question was not for Him to get the answer, then who was the question for? Us! God gets us alone with Him and He asks us where we are, what we are doing and why. And He asks this so that we can evaluate our spiritual condition. He wants us to admit that we have strayed away from his Presence and tried to do things on our own. He wants us to admit that we have forgotten what He is able to do. He wants us to admit that we are in desperate need of Him.
Matthew 5:3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit"....fortunate are those who recognize that apart from God, they are toast. God wants us to come humbly before Him and admit that we are bankrupt apart from His grace, and are in need of His help.Isn't this questioning familiar to us, going all the way back to the beginning?
Genesis 3:9
But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
The first question God asked Adam and Eve as well as Elijah is the very same question He asks you and I today in our days of emptiness, in our dry and desolate places. Why? Because desolation compels desperation and desperation drives us to dependence.....it drives us back into the Presence of God: the Only One we can depend on to work all things for our good.
So, where are you?
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