v 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.
Can you remember back to Mid-July when we had day after day of beautiful sunshine, and the grass went brown and the ground was dry as a bone? We saved the water out of the bath and the washing-up so that it could be re-cycled for the garden. Fierce storms and flash-floods never appeared on my wish-list however! As a gardener I longed for a few showers – gentle ones to refresh the flowers and vegetables
Elijah caught a glimpse of God’s power in the earthquake and fire, but it was not through these that he heard the message from God. It was in the gentle whisper that followed that God made himself known. Our God is not a shouty God, demanding that we listen, nor does he impose himself on us in some dramatic fashion. Gently, very gently, he invites us to follow him. He chooses to come to us in times of quietness and solitude and whisper into our lives
How hard we find it to hear what God might be saying to us; our busyness and noise-filled lives can prevent us from hearing his whisper.
There are folk who feel they hear God better in the noisy and active circumstances of life, but I sense that most of us find it hard to listen through the static and interference of the 21st Century, living with a smart phone in one hand and our fingers restlessly flicking at the screen.
Our God speaks to us gently; and more than ever we have to try to find the right place and time to be still and listen attentively to him.
If that is the way God communicates with us, reflect on the way you communicate with other people.