Alone

Here in the cave, here in the darkness, I sit alone and wait for God. He is my glory, my hope, the Lord of my life and the master of my destiny. He is the creator of all that is, and the only true source of joy. And now I sit alone in the darkness and wish that I could die.

It has been an amazing experience to walk with God through the thunder and the terror, judgement and vindication, yet, even after all of that. I am utterly alone.

I have seen the judgement of God fall upon the land, when for three years the heavens were shut up and no rain fell. And while the people of Israel cried out in their terrible thirst (but still did not see that the linchpin of life is not the thirst for water but our soul deep thirst for God, without whom we cannot live a single breath), for all that time the Lord sustained me in a hidden place, by a secret stream and fed by the birds of heaven: the ravens men scorn were my lifeline. The king had the land searched for me, and they could not find me, I had vanished from men’s sight like the caterpillar vanishes into the darkness of its cocoon, only to re-emerge transfigured by wings when God’s time is right.

Oh I felt like a winged creature up there on Mount Carmel. The power of God was strong in that moment, and I felt his spirit coursing through my words and actions. I challenged those presumptuous priests of Baal, and those perverted priests of Ashtoreth, and I knew, before any words had left my lips, that the hour of their undoing was at hand. They could perform all their grotesque rituals, cry out their prayers, demonic and pathetic, and it would avail them nothing. The fire would not fall from heaven for them, no matter what lengths they went to beseech it. I laughed at them, for I could afford to laugh that day.

Then, when I had finally had enough of their antics, it was my turn. The people were subdued by then, and probably a little bored, they had been waiting all day and nothing had happened. There were questions hanging in the air. But when I called for water to be poured over my sacrifice, they started to pay attention again. This was the total opposite of what they had expected, the total opposite of what their false priests had done. And then I prayed, simply and explicitly and all Israel knew what was at stake.

And then the fire fell. The glory of God broke through, and there was wonder and much fear. And all those false heathen priests were put to death in the fervour that followed.

But I had not reckoned with the malice of Jezebel. The demonstrable greatness of God which brought fear and renewal to Israel, brought no repentance to her wicked heart. Instead of triumph, I have been forced to flee for my life. Are all my efforts for nothing? Am I the only one left in Israel who truly worships the Living God? Is my victory only the passage to a darker and more terrible defeat?

Yet I am now in the very place where the Lord appeared to Moses and Israel were born. Perhaps if I plead my case here he will appear again to his servant and Israel can yet be renewed.