When God Isn’t Who You Thought - Even If He Doesn’t

Scripture: 1 Kings 19:11-12

When crisis hits, it presents us with a choice. Will we stubbornly cling to what we’ve always believed, or will we respond to the crisis as an invitation to know God more? When we’ve decided we have God figured out, we might be convinced that it would be wrong or sinful to change our minds. So instead of leaning into our pain and our questions, we turn away from them, cozy up with what we’re confident is right, and deny ourselves the grace of knowing God through our pain, not just in spite of it.

Religion stands still and quiet, but faith chases, pursues, and seeks. We run after him with limps. We praise with no words. We sing with no song. We search for him in the dark and turn our heads toward him and whisper, “Are you still there?” Even when he doesn’t whisper back, we continue to speak, to crawl, to try to find some shred of the God we still somehow, inexplicably, believe is there in the dark with us.

Pride keeps a death grip on things that cost too much to let go of. Fear prevents us from asking tough questions that lead to a deeper understanding of God and his Word.

We have to be willing to change our minds sometimes. We need to take the risk of pursuing truth, even if it comes at the cost of changing our minds about things we were sure were right. Fear and pride only keep us from the presence of God. They keep us from knowing him and from diving into the fullness of Christ with our full selves.

First Kings 19 tells the story of the day God called Elijah to the mountain so he could speak to him. Elijah waited, and as he waited, there was a wind that shattered the cliffs, but God wasn’t in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, but God wasn’t in that either. After the earthquake, there was a fire, but God wasn’t in the fire. God was in what came last: a whisper. He didn’t come like you’d expect God to come, and he didn’t speak like he had spoken before. No burning bushes, no great display of strength and might. He spoke in the whisper.

Even in the middle of the darkest night, your heart—even if just a fragment of it—can trust that the Lord is there. He might not show up in the way you expect, or the way that he has shown up before, but you can trust that he’s there, always, present in your pain.