People become little more than a bother or a threat, a problem we’re forced to bend our plans and agendas around instead of a holy opportunity and gift to relate to. Too much separation can cause us to become hardened, narrow, desensitized and one dimensional. Solitude may be beautiful and restful, but without the counterbalance of community it can also make us self-absorbed – stuck inside our own thoughts and needs, unconcerned and unable to walk in relationship with others. ![]() The constant give and take of family life – even a surrogate family – is the dynamic that God often uses to mold us in a unique way. It is one thing to commune with God in the solitudes of nature and perform splendid acts of devotion and zeal for Him in the presence of thousands, but it is quite another to walk with Him day by day in the midst of a home with its many calls for constant forgetfulness of self. Many a man might bear himself as a hero and saint in the solitudes of Cherith or on the heights of Carmel and yet wretchedly fail in the home life of Zarephath. He would transition from a life in which only his own needs required consideration to one in which an awareness and thoughtfulness of others would be essential. This new context – with its daily mundane demands and relational nuances – would methodically and intentionally unwind him from the ingrown tendencies that unrestrained solitude at the ravine in Cherith may have worked in him. He would make his home with a single mother and her son until the drought in Israel ended. ![]() In this new dynamic, Elijah would shift from living alone to existing within the context of family. But then, on one day when the water had run dry, “ The Word of the Lord came to him saying ‘Arise, go to Zarephath. He’d grown accustomed to the context and cadence of solitude. In 1 Kings 17, the premiere prophet of the Old Testament had been sequestered at Cherith for roughly eighteen months. Shelter-in-place orders have forced us to face difficult things, tackle mundane things, revive forgotten things, reinforce important things and rediscover lost things. Sequestered in close quarters with our spouses and children, siblings and in-laws, this unprecedented year has accentuated these things in all of our lives. May the Lord grant in us the discernment to hear His voice as we do the work we are called to do.Hard conversations and difficult dynamics. Let us wait in anticipation for both-the hurricane and the gentle blowing. This misconception will inevitably blind us to the occasions when His authentic activity is in the ‘sound of a gentle blowing.’” Elijah: Faith and Fire, Priscilla Shirer, p. Just because it’s hyper doesn’t mean it’s holy. Just because it’s extraordinary-just because it’s cut from the earthquake, hurricane, or wildfire variety-doesn’t automatically mean it’s Him at work. “…as you walk forward in your journey with the Lord, remember that His presence is not always characterized as something that thrills us-an emotional reaction that startles us a big, bold event that awakens us a flashy circumstance that wows us or an eye-opening occurrence that surprises us. “Less-flashy work is no less God’s work.”
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