Elijah was afraid and ran for his life … (1 Kings 19:3)

Where did Elijah think he was going?  What was he hoping to find once he got there?

He runs because the powerful king and queen of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel, have sworn to kill him.  He flees, first, all the way to Beersheba, the southernmost city in the Promised Land. From there, a day’s journey into the desert.  Finding no lasting shelter under a solitary broom tree, he continues his flight, across some very difficult and inhospitable terrain, all the way to Horeb (Mount Sinai) – all the way into a cave.

That is a lot of running.

Elijah runs because, as far as he can tell, God has not come through for him.  Nothing seems to have changed: wicked Ahab and Jezebel still rule; Israel is still mired in the idol worship; the entire nation has rejected God’s covenant—and God hasn’t “fixed” any of it.

Where can life be found when life has fallen apart, ground to a halt, come unglued, exploded/imploded, run off the rails and over a cliff?

Reversing Israel’s Exodus journey, Elijah’s flees from the Promised Land back to Sinai, the place where God made covenant with Israel.  

Perhaps Elijah is thinking, “If only I could get back to safety in the past, to some kind of “golden age” when things were “the way they’re supposed to be.”  He’s seeking the shelter of the familiar, the known, the tried-and-true. Maybe he’s just had it with the messiness, unpredictability and out-of-control nature of life, especially in times of crisis and danger.  Perhaps he’s fed up with God’s inaction; maybe he’s fed up with God’s continuing mercy and patience, particularly towards wicked and corrupt rulers, and with faithless, indifferent and idolatrous people (“I am the only one left”).

Elijah is running for his life.  I’m not sure he understood it at the time, but he was also running to his life.  

God is waiting for him.  God calls him out of his cave, out of isolation, fear, and self-protection.  “Get out of the cave,” God tells him, “and stand on the mountain.” We humans have this thing about mountains; when we’ve reached a summit of some kind, we gaze across a widened horizon and say, “This puts things in perspective.”

But neither mountains nor ”perspective” alone give and sustain life; hearing the voice of the Lord will.

The past is not a secure and safe shelter; neither is an imagined or hoped-for future.  The “right” kind of politics and economics, the “right” kind of leaders and laws, while good things, are not where we find life.  Life is in the Lord.

God called Elijah out of shelter into life.  Life comes, not as we to try to protect, preserve and “save” our lives, but as we release ourselves into the life of God.  Life comes as we stop running for our lives and start running to Him who is our life.

What about our current situation is “punching your buttons,” of fear, anger, control-freakiness, etc.?  What kinds of “caves” have you found yourself seeking? What sorts of winds, earthquakes and fires keep grabbing and holding your attention?

What is God saying to you: how is God speaking Himself into your situation and your responses to it?