What Are You Doing Here?

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (I Kings 19:9b and 13b).

A few weeks after saying my life-transforming “Yes” to Jesus, I sat in a church service where I Kings 19:3-18 was being preached. Although that was forty-plus years ago, I can still hear that pastor's reading of “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He put strong emphasis on the “here.”

It is illuminating when the Lord asks us a question. By asking He is giving us something to zero in on. We get to transfer from loop, rabbit trail, or stuck thinking to targeted reflection.

The Lord put this question to Elijah two times. I wonder if the first time He emphasized “doing” and the second He emphasized “here.” If so, Elijah didn't pick up on it because he answered with the same story both times. Elijah declared what he had done right, what the Israelites had done wrong, that he was the only one left standing, and that his enemies planned to kill him. None of which actually answered the Lord's question.

The Lord was not asking about the devastating circumstances Elijah had gone through. He was asking about Elijah's response to those circumstances. It wasn't the circumstances that had gotten Elijah where he was, doing what he was doing—it was his response to those circumstances.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

If Elijah had been truthful with himself and God, he would have answered, “I'm here in this cave--sheltered in place—because I'm tired, depressed and scared to death, Lord. What I'm doing is hashing over what has happened to me and what's going to happen next.”  

We are used to thinking circumstances are our issue, so we find ourselves sheltering in a cave of our own making, hashing them over. Like Elijah, we need to hear God's question: “What are you doing here, (your name)?”

As we recognize and own our responses to our circumstances, becoming honest with ourselves and God, we step into a better shelter. We learn that “Wisdom is a shelter...wisdom preserves the life of its possessor” (Ecclesiastes 7:11).

How are you like Elijah when he was in the cave answering God's “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Try looking at one of your circumstances and naming your response to it.

You may not be able to change your circumstance, but with God's help you can change your response to it. Ask for His guidance to do this. It's the wise thing to do.

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