Power in Prayer: Wait for the Second Voice

by Marilynn Chadwick

Continued from Friday…

Elijah was known as a man who listened to God. Repeatedly in the Bible, we read that “the word of the Lord came to Elijah.” He saw miracle after miracle as he stepped out in obedience to God’s voice. Elijah has plenty to teach us about how to pray during a time of crisis. The prophet had faced his own personal battle with terror. After an enormous fight of faith in which he defeated a demonized mob of over four-hundred prophets of Baal, Elijah was the target of a death threat by the wicked Queen Jezebel.

Elijah’s deliverance came as he ultimately learned to hear God, not in the earthquake, wind, or fire, but in a gentle whisper. After the turmoil and fear that followed the shocking terror attack on 9/11, I was desperate to listen to God, too. Not in the fiery drama in the world around us, but rather in “the still, small voice” of the heart. Somehow, I just knew that if God were to give me instructions about how to pray, it would not be in the first voice—the tumultuous roar I heard in my head, with its temptation to panic—but rather in the second voice, a voice of calm.

I had seen a statue of the prophet Elijah when visiting Israel years earlier. The sinewy, fireball of a man looked more warrior than prophet. After praying for God to bring drought as judgment upon faithless Israel, he gave a whipping to the evil mob of 400 pagan prophets in his own “Super Bowl of faith.” The feisty prophet then climbed to a mountain-top to pray for rain—and ran the distance of a full marathon to beat Ahab back to Jezreel in time to await the downpour (you can read the full story in 1 Kings 18:22-40).

Yet, after all that, when faced with retaliatory death threats from Ahab’s wicked wife, Queen Jezebel, Elijah had a serious meltdown. “Terrified,” we’re told in 1 Kings 19:3, Elijah “ran for his life.” This self-described zealot for God, the steely, iron-man-triathlete of faith had exhausted himself into what we would call today a clinical depression. “I am ready to die," he told God. He felt alone and utterly defeated—as broken down as the rest of Israel.

But herein lies the secret: When Elijah broke, he knew where to run. Elijah ran to Mount Horeb—the place where he knew he would encounter God. And what did God do? Fed him, put him to sleep, fed him again. Only after this period of intensive rest and refueling did the Lord speak to Elijah.

This time, God was not in the earthquake, wind or fire, but rather in a gentle whisper. And in this intimate conversation—humbled yet renewed after his time of utter brokenness—Elijah saw a new side of God, and probably a new side of himself. Though fervent in faith and mighty in strength, Elijah had discovered the full extent of God’s great love for him during his time of greatest weakness.

When you break, where do you run? It’s during these times of absolute breaking that we become most receptive to God’s voice.