The Healing Processes That Must Take Place Within Us

Let us turn to the word of the Lord. This morning I want to share with you, as we continue with our theme of abundant lives, happy lives, sound lives, healthy lives, and especially the healing processes that need to take place within us. And in the future I want to be even more specific about different subjects such as depression, anxiety, mental strongholds, and all these kinds of things. It is going to be a long series, but through all these subjects we are really dealing extensively with Scripture, and we are at the very center, at the very heart, of the Christian life.

But again, always remaining focused on that call from God to be healthy people, sound people, in the midst of a hostile world that often works against our well-being, and in which we have to contend with the struggles, difficulties, problems, pains of life, illnesses, and financial setbacks; but in spite of all that, as Paul says, “in all these things—not outside them, but in them—we are more than conquerors.”

And Paul, by the way, was a man who knew much affliction, persecution, pain, inner and personal afflictions, loneliness, criticism from others, beatings, even physical persecution, and imprisonment. But in the midst of that we have his wonderful Epistle to the Philippians, an epistle that overflows with joy and contentment in the Lord, and a call to live lives… rejoice; again I say, rejoice, says the apostle Paul while he is in prison.

So the Bible calls us to that duality, to live in that tension between God’s benevolent purpose for us to be happy and recover from every loss and every affliction, and also the fact that we are going to pass through those times of trial and difficulty.

I have told you that at this time we are speaking about pain, suffering, and adversity; that there is something healthy in simply getting used to the idea that life is hard and difficult, that times of difficulty will come into our lives, and that the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not that we do not go through tribulation and difficulties, but how we go through them, how we process them, and how we instead use them to grow and become more like Christ. And when we change our perspective from victims to victors, that changes the way we experience our trials and the effect they have on us.

And that is why I strongly believe in what I call normalizing pain and normalizing suffering: understanding that this is part of this fallen world we inhabit, which God is in the process of regenerating and transforming, and which one day will be exchanged “for new heavens and a new earth,” says the word of the Lord.

But while we are in this world, which has already been pierced by sin, this world, even if it wanted to, cannot give us complete happiness. And when we understand that, comprehend it, accept it, and believe that in the midst of it we have tools and resources that God provides us, along with his word, so that we can emerge victorious, there is peace in that, there is confidence in the Lord, and there is emotional health. I have even said that suffering is often a surgical instrument, so to speak, used by God, paradoxically, to lead us to happiness.

Many times, when we go through trials and tribulations, if we handle them properly and emerge from them having used biblical resources and principles, we come out lighter, more like Christ, and therefore more capable of being happy. Some of the happiest people I know in life are people who have gone through great tribulations, especially elderly people whom you see with that peace and tranquility. And it is because now, when you speak with them—wow!—you see that when they were young, they went through many trials and tribulations; but when they began to see the world through the lenses of Christ, they were able to have peace and happiness.

Pain is one of the things that brings us the greatest relief. You will remember that last Sunday we spoke—especially in the twelve o’clock sermon, which was practically different but dealt with the same subject. If you want to supplement what you heard in the morning, I dwelt on the passage in Hebrews, chapter 12, where it speaks of laying aside every weight and the sin that so besets us, that surrounds us, and running lightly, or running with lightness, the race of faith.

And I maintain that pain, once it has passed and is viewed and interpreted through the lenses of Scripture and with the use of biblical tools, lightens us and then makes us more capable of being happy in the future. But we have to see it that way. We have to see pain not as something that has been imposed on us and that is an indication of God’s indifference, God’s hostility, God’s punishment, my lack of faith, or my sinfulness. When we stop seeing it that way and begin to see it as something in which God has a purpose by allowing it or bringing it into my life, then that transforms the experience and allows me to see it as something redemptive, surgical, and even therapeutic, something that will make me better. Then it no longer has the harmful, often toxic effect that pain has in our lives.

Sometimes, when we see that our children are going through problems and difficulties and can discern the hand of God at work in them, and when we can encourage ourselves to believe that God has a purpose in the pain they are experiencing and pray with them, then we can stop agonizing so much over them and know that, in the course of a journey, God also has to lead them as he led us, and that God will fulfill his purpose in them as well.

That is why I have said that I want to spend some time on that aspect of suffering, and I am going to give a couple more sermons in that area. Today I specifically want to continue, and I want to examine a case, a case study, the case of a specific person in Scripture who went through a moment of terrible crisis in his life. One could almost say it was like a ministerial failure in his life, and he did something that would not have been expected of such a great man of God as he was.

But God had a purpose in that dark and terrible experience through which this man, this servant of God, passed. And this helps us see how God can use times of trial and difficulty in our lives, even in the best of cases, to accomplish an effect, a purpose he has through that experience.

And I am referring specifically to a great man of God in the Old Testament named Elijah. Few men possessed more power than Elijah or had a more stellar career in Scripture than the prophet Elijah, a man who performed astonishing miracles, used by God during terrible times in Israel’s history. Yet he was a man with a nervous system like ours, emotions like ours, and flaws of temperament and character like ours. He had his own spiritual journey that he had to continue. He was not a plaster saint or a superman; he was a man like any one of us.

By the way, the writer James says in James 5:17 that Elijah was a man subject to passions like ours. “Passions” means emotions, as we would say today in psychological language. Elijah was a man subject to emotions like ours. Why does James say that? Because I believe that, as he writes this, he is remembering the passage I am going to read—I am not going to read it, but I am going to discuss it because it is long—in 1 Kings, chapter 19. For there, recorded in that passage, we see that man whose emotions were very much like ours.

Rarely are we able to enter into the psychology of a servant of God as we do in that passage about Elijah in the wilderness. And yet James says that, despite being a man like us, he prayed fervently that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Do you know that God can use us even though we are imperfect and very human? Sometimes we deify, we want to deify, the male and female servants of God, but they are people like anyone else, with all the passions, attractions, sins, temptations, defects, fears, and deformities of any other human being. And yet God uses them.

We have this treasure, it says, in jars of clay, so that the glory may belong to God and not to us. That is, God used him. James, by the way, is saying: Look, pray; believe God, for God can do great things through you, even though you may feel that you still have much room to grow, because here is Elijah, who was a man like you, and yet God so greatly heeded his prayer that he moved nature itself. Elijah prayed and it stopped raining for three years; he prayed again, and heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. There is hope in that for all of us.

Now, let us remember the passage in 1 Kings, chapter 19. Perhaps you can read it little by little while listening closely to me, or perhaps many of you will remember it. Elijah achieved a great, great victory in his ministerial career when he defeated hundreds of false prophets of Baal, a terrible god who was being worshiped by the Israelites under the leadership of their rulers, Jezebel and Ahab, people who were practically demon-possessed.

We remember that great story in which Elijah confronts the prophets and has them pray to see whether the god Baal can make it rain in Israel. They fail after spending hours performing all their antics and doing all their things. Then Elijah comes, builds an altar of stone and wood, and pours water on it to soak all the stones and all the wood, so that it will be evident that this is not an act of magic, some cheap magician’s trick. And then he prays a very simple prayer, asking God to send fire down from heaven, and that is indeed what happens.

So much fire falls that it consumes the wood and the water, which was even running through trenches, and it becomes clear and evident to all the people of Israel who witnessed this that God is the true God, that Jehovah is the God of Israel. And it changes Israel’s destiny, at least for a moment, for a time. It shows them that Jehovah is the true God.

Imagine: after such a great victory, one would think that Elijah would never doubt the power of God that was on his side and would fear absolutely no one. By the way, after that victory, the Bible says that Elijah took all those false prophets—a mystery—and slaughtered all those five hundred demon-possessed prophets. Please do not follow that example with your children or anything of the sort. That is a very sui generis case. Elijah executed those hundreds of prophets. I do not know whether he did it personally, as we seem to be told that he slaughtered them, but I suspect that he must have had help, because he would have grown tired after a while.

The point is that it is a terrible image. Imagine the character and mettle required to witness, participate in, order, or help carry out the slaughter of hundreds of men. What mettle, what courage, what psychological strength it requires.

But one would think that, after such a great victory, this man, as strong and rugged as Elijah was, would fear absolutely nothing. But what happens? After Elijah does this, we are told here in 1 Kings, chapter 19, that Jezebel, this demon-possessed queen, sends Elijah a letter telling him, “What you did to my prophets, I am going to do to you.” In plain Dominican language, she told him, “Just wait until I get my hands on you.”

And the Bible says that Elijah became afraid. A very intense panic came over him, and he felt lonely, desperate, and alone. Imagine that the CIA, the Secret Service, and the FBI are after you to take your life. Where do you hide? Elijah felt completely helpless.

Pause for a moment, because I believe that sometimes it is important… I sometimes think that God even cooperates with and allows us to fall into certain emotional states in our lives because he has a purpose in them.

I also think of the panic that came over Peter when this humble servant girl, while Jesus was being questioned in Caiaphas’s courtyard, said to him, “You are one of those who walks with Jesus; you are also part of his…” And fear came over Peter. Peter was so sure of himself and was a strong and courageous man, and yet a kind of terror came over him, and he denied that he belonged to Jesus three times, cursing the last time so that they would believe him: “I do not go around with that…” or whatever he said.

But the Lord had a purpose in that panic, because Jesus had foretold to him, “Peter, you are not only going to deny me once; you are going to deny me three times.” Because of the pride in Peter, he thought, All the others will deny you, but I will never turn away from you. I am special. And the Lord wanted to strike down that self-sufficiency in Peter, that pride, because he wanted to form a man who would be pastoral, a servant who would lead his church when he was no longer on the earth.

Because that is what happens: God sometimes allows trials and difficulties to come into our lives because he has a purpose to shape us. When you enter the Gospel, remember that you do not enter only to receive; you enter to give. Isn’t that right? You enter to be a blessing; you enter to be worked on, so that God can use you for others. And how is God going to take you from the deformed state in which you find yourself to a state in which you have words of wisdom, experience, knowledge of the word, and knowledge of how God works, except by putting you through processes that teach you who God is, that drain you and draw out much of that bad blood within you, and make you a true servant of God, whether male or female?

Pain is one of the most instructive things in the whole of human experience. And God uses it to break us, but also to prepare us and bless us in the end.

I believe Elijah fell into this panic, but I believe God was working with that emotional state of fear, strange as it was for a man like him. Because I also believe… I have often tried to enter into Elijah’s psychology and understand this man. Elijah fascinates me for many different reasons, and I have always said that in ministry our strengths are also our weaknesses. The things that make a man or a woman strong very often have a dark side as well. They are like the two sides of a coin.

So, Elijah… God used Elijah and chose him partly because his emotional makeup was suited to fighting in a terrible time of persecution, when the government of Israel itself was opposed to the values of the Kingdom of God and was sworn to undermine the values of the Kingdom of God. And these people in power were violent criminals, and a man of equal strength and equal physical courage was needed to counteract that terrible power that controlled the people of Israel. And Elijah was that man.

If you read the passages where Elijah’s personality is portrayed for us, you see a man who was violent, with the intensity of a person who doesn’t take any nonsense, as we say. He was a man who was aggressive in spirit; he was a man with clear convictions; he was a man who could rebuke, attack, and confront these powerful gods—which were demons—and these two monarchs. He dressed in animal skins, ate insects, and lived on wild food, insects, and honey. And this man lived as a loner.

He was the kind of person who would arrive in a village and everyone would tremble because they did not know what might come out of him. He was one of those stereotypical Old Testament prophets. God needed his psychological makeup. Because God works through our natural aptitudes to use us in different aspects of life. And he places his servants in different situations in life according to what he has been forming in them or the natural aptitudes they possess.

That is why, for example, he chose Paul to do what he did, because Paul had a foundation of abilities that God could use to advance the Gospel at that pivotal time in the Greco-Roman world, with its cities and all that sort of thing. It would take a long time to explain, but God chooses people whom he has even been preparing beforehand, as he did with Joseph, Moses, and others like them. God works through many years of experience in order to use us and place us in position.

Those people you see who want to… they come into the Gospel, and by the very next day they already want to be pastors, preachers, evangelists. Well, God can use them, but normally God takes time to prepare a saint, I say.

So, Elijah… that aggressive, militant, violent constitution, physically strong and physically courageous—but what happens with a person like that? A person like that, whom God can use for certain purposes, also has a negative side. He may be the sort of person who, if someone comes to him with a need—“I feel afraid, I’m having nightmares”—says, “What? Young man, go away, pray, fast for three days, stop that foolishness, and keep moving forward. God is with you. A heart that has Christ cannot be sad.”

Such a prophetic, violent person may not be very sensitive in the areas of counseling, mercy, compassion, love, tenderness, and the ability to disciple someone. Everything is black and white because that is how they are: black and white. I also believe that their violent character makes them fragile. Men, our masculinity, if it has not been dealt with by God and does not have a measure of femininity in it, sometimes makes us sterile and brittle. A man needs feminine flexibility within him, and a woman needs masculine firmness, because in that sense we complement each other and are thus able to be flexible.

There are macho men who are so macho that they are good for nothing except being like breeding stallions, simply made to be studs, to reproduce. But flexibility and tenderness are needed in order to be used by God in other ways. And a person as strong as Elijah has his weak side too. Psychologically, he is also fragile and easily frustrated. He does not have the analytical abilities, complexity, and psychological nuance to deal with frustrating situations in which he is powerless, because he is accustomed to being in control—and there are many more things we could say about Elijah’s psychology.

His strong side, which enabled him to do many terrible things at that time, also left him weak in other areas. And I believe that is partly why, when he finds himself in this situation with the road seemingly blocked and this very powerful woman wanting to kill him, he collapses. And it says that when he hears what Jezebel tells him, he went into the wilderness—19:4—and first left his servant there.

One of the things you should never do when you are in crisis and facing difficulties is isolate yourself, and normally that is precisely what you will want to do. “Don’t talk to me, don’t call me”—go into the bedroom, draw the curtain, get yourself some extra-dark sunglasses, climb into bed, find a really thick blanket and cover your head, put on the gloomiest music you can find on the radio, become depressed, and revel in your terrible situation.

The first thing Elijah does is leave his servant behind. Whenever you are in tribulation, anguish, or difficulty, find people who will pray with you; talk and unburden yourself to people who are capable of helping you. Seek companionship. That is why we must be compassionate toward one another, and if you see someone who is sad and isolating himself, respectfully do everything you can to give that person love and companionship.

Then it says that he left his servant, separated himself from him, and went into the wilderness, because he was a man of the wilderness. He liked solitude, the wild countryside, the forest, and silence. He went alone into the wilderness, journeyed deep into it for a day, and it says:

“…and he came and sat down beneath a tree, a juniper tree, and wishing to die—those are some of the most tragic words in all Scripture for a man as powerful as this—wishing to die…”

That is why James says he was a man with passions like ours, because for some of us there have been times in our lives when we have wished to die; we have gone through tribulations and difficulties and may have wished, “Lord, take my life.”

“…wishing to die, he said, ‘It is enough now, O Jehovah; take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.’”

In other words, I cannot endure any more; I am not Superman; kill me. If he had not been a God-fearing man, perhaps he would have thought, “I’m going to take two pills, or three or four, and take my own life.” But he was certainly depressed. I do not have time to develop the point, but Elijah displays every sign and every clinical indication of chronic depression—every one. Many psychologists and psychiatrists even say that after a great triumph, you should often expect a great depression, because that is how the mechanisms of human psychology work. After that great triumph he experienced, he enters this stage of terrible depression.

But I believe God had a purpose in that tragedy. Remember that what I want to teach you is how God uses pain and suffering, afflictions, failures, and life’s crises, and how he is often at work in the midst of that situation to bring us to another level of knowing him, of emotional health, and of having a different perspective on life.

So God was at work here. It seems that the devil and this evil woman are the ones in control, but God is using her, because God even uses the devil and demons to bless us, brothers and sisters. The devil has to do what God tells him to do; he cannot go beyond the point where God gives him freedom in our lives.

So God allowed this to happen for a purpose he had for this man. He wants to form a man and bring Elijah to another level of spiritual capacity and personal healing. Because God does not simply want to get something out of us. I have learned that God is not there as though he takes you like a piece of sugarcane, with a cane press, squeezes you, and, once he can get no more out of you, throws you away and looks for another piece of cane to squeeze as well. Rather, God likes to invest in his servants, and God not only wants to get something out of us, but also wants to bless us, strengthen us, build us up, teach us, and equip us for the next stage. And God wants us to be happy too, even while we serve him.

That idea that those of us who serve the Lord have to sacrifice our children, our marriage, our wife, and have to suffer continually until the Lord takes us out of this cruel world, because otherwise we are not good servants—that is a lie from the devil. God wants us to be happy even while we serve him, although many times we may indeed go through tribulation.

So God wanted to bring this man to another level, and he allows him to enter this crisis because it is a kind of therapy he wants to give Elijah. I call this passage God’s psychotherapy: how God uses painful experiences to treat us and work on our weaknesses.

Elijah reaches a point of total inadequacy. This man, who was so strong, so self-confident, so self-sufficient, and so physically courageous, now finds that all of that has abandoned him, and he feels powerless, persecuted, alone, needy, depressed, and sad.

And brothers and sisters, I often tell you that for many of us that low point is one of the best points in our entire lives, because there we sweat out many of the impurities within us. There we confront our own mortality and our own inadequacy, and that is very healthy: knowing where your weakness lies and how much you need God and your loved ones around you.

This man needed all of that in order to truly be a servant used by God. And God wanted to enrich him; God wanted him to have peace and joy and to rest as well, because for Elijah everything was ministry, struggle, fighting, conflict with people who did not love the Kingdom of God. And he had created this image for himself: “If I do not do things, no one will. If I am not here to represent the Kingdom of God, then everyone—all these scoundrels—has gone over to Baal, and I am the only one serving the Lord. And if I do not fight the battle, everything is going to hell.”

He also had this idea of his own… because it came from his commitment and his sense of integrity: when he gave, he gave everything, and if everyone else did not give everything as he did, then they were giving nothing. And God wanted to form and work on this man, I believe, to bless him and show him an aspect of God that I do not believe Elijah knew, because the God he had known was always a certain kind of God whom we are going to see in a moment.

So this is also what is called, in psychology and teaching, an object lesson, where God sometimes places us in something like psychodramas, causing us to live through an experience in which we are the actors and other people are actors in a drama we are living out, so that we may interpret it and learn things through the experience itself. By living it, we are learning lessons, and they are being inscribed in us as if with a knife; they are being engraved and sculpted into our very psyche because we are living through them in the fire of the trial, welding them to our psyche.

I believe God is putting together an entire drama in which Elijah is the main actor, and God is also the reader, producer, and composer of that drama. And one of the characters is Jezebel, one of the characters is Elijah, and another character is also the people of Israel, and all of this. It says:

“…and lying down beneath the tree, he fell asleep…”

Elijah was tired, psychologically exhausted. Imagine, after going through what this man went through, with those Baals and all those horrible, terrible characters, after killing 500 men and perhaps bearing the entire burden of ministry—he desperately needed a sabbatical; he needed a vacation. And I believe that if he had not gone through this trial, he would not have taken a vacation, because there was so much to do, so much work. You know, sometimes God sends us on forced vacations. If you do not take care of yourself and attend to yourself, you will suffer an emotional or physical collapse, and then you will have to do it in a hospital bed. You will spend your vacation there with syringes stuck into you everywhere; you will have a nervous breakdown, or run off with the secretary, or whatever.

If you do not take care of yourself emotionally, spiritually, and physically, your system will take revenge and you will have problems. Mothers, take care of yourselves for the sake of your children. Sometimes we think we have to work ourselves to death and do everything and cannot have… No, take some time for yourself, take off your shoes, and when your husband arrives, let him find you watching television or listening to your music. “And where is the food?” “Oh, it’s in the pantry. There’s a can of soup; serve yourself. The kitchen is closed today. Go over there and you’ll see a sign that says, ‘Kitchen closed.’”

We need to take time, brothers and sisters; it is not all about working and suffering. Sometimes God wants us to take a vacation, and sometimes God even wants to serve us, my brothers and sisters; sometimes God wants to serve us. And that is what happened here, because God caused him to fall asleep… This man was emotionally exhausted; he fell asleep, and look at what a beautiful story: when Elijah wakes up, there is an angel there beside him who touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”

I believe the words that angel spoke were very tender words. It was not, “Get up and eat!” No, it was, “Get up and eat.” They were like words of affirmation for this man, and the Lord himself had baked a cake for him over the coals. It says:

“…then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked over the coals and a jar of water…”

By the way, it was not a fatty leg of pork; it was a cake. I think God is a vegetarian. Elijah might have said, “Lord, thank you, but I would have liked a little chicken drumstick too.”

No, but what he gave him was a cake and a jar of water—bread and water. But I am sure that bread tasted heavenly. And it had vitamins and nutrients, because God is economical; he does not need meat if the toast had all the nutrients he needed.

I believe that act was an act of God’s tenderness. I imagine this man getting up exhausted, still feeling the drowsiness of that deep sleep brought on by his weariness, which for the first time he was allowing himself to experience, and there is the Lord with a little meal: eat, nourish yourself. And what happened? It says that he went back to sleep. This man was exhausted; he was burned out, and God was allowing him to sleep and to…

The fact is that, in a sense, he is a very natural and very wise God. This man needed food and sleep and tenderness and to feel God’s care, because he did not even allow himself to feel the tenderness of his Father. I believe he was a very self-sufficient man; if he needed something, he would go and kill a rabbit in the jungle and eat it. And he was not accustomed to being served, and many of us are like that. I will tell you the truth: sometimes I find it difficult to accept things and to let people do favors for me.

One gets used to being self-sufficient, and God wanted this man… Many times, we need someone to care for us, bless us, pray for us, and minister to us too. This man was not accustomed to that, and for him, too, God was the God of judgment and power and punishment and endurance, and of violence if necessary; but that other God—tender and loving and maternal, feminine… Elijah had testosterone coming out of his ears; he was a man, a macho man in every sense, and God used him because of that.

But again, he needed the other side, the feminine side. Notice, I believe this is a drama in which God wants to show Elijah the feminine side of God, in quotation marks. It is not that God is man and woman, but there is a side that we… that woman exemplifies in her constitution, and man… and these two energies that we call masculine and feminine exist because they are in God, because God is a lawgiver and is just and is truth and is structure, but God is also mercy, compassion, and love—the masculine and feminine sides complemented in a single being.

And when a man and a woman in marriage unite physically, they are, as it were, exemplifying the complexity and balance of God himself: his strong masculine side and his strong feminine side, but strong in the compassionate and tender sense, with both things joined there. And in our own psyche, in our own temperament, we must exemplify those two sides: the tender side and the lawgiving side, the side of truth and justice and the side of compassion, mercy, and patience. They have to be within us; we must seek both sides within ourselves. A woman must be strong and secure, firm and clear, and a man must be compassionate, tender, loving, and patient, and he must have the other side as well.

I believe Elijah had known only that side of God—the side of judgment and truth—and God wanted to show him the other side. I know we have gone over time, but there is so much here. We have taken a lot of time for many things, but… give me a couple more minutes.

I believe that in all of this—his sleeping, being served, and feeling himself to be the object of God’s care—God is dealing with this man, because it is as though God placed him in a time of training to get more out of him. God wanted to bless this man and not merely get more use out of him. He had already been very useful in a very great way; now he wanted to bless him and minister to him, as Jesus did when he sent the seventy out to minister and afterward told them, “Now come away to a secluded place, and we are going to take a vacation.” Because the Lord likes there to be a time of rest after the work, and also a time for him to replenish us and to debrief us, and for us to talk about the experiences we have had, share life’s moments with him, and also have time for fellowship with God. It is not only service and work, brothers and sisters. We must make time to know God.

God wants Martha, but he also wants Mary. The Bible is full of these very clearly defined personalities. Martha: all productivity, integrity, service, and tenacity; Mary: tender, gentle, sitting at Jesus’ feet, drinking in every word with a look of worship in her eyes. But without the Marthas, the church will not get anywhere; and without the Marys, it will not either. Each of us needs Martha and Mary within us.

And God wanted psychological healing for Elijah. I believe this text is extremely profound in that sense. For me, the most instructive thing about this text is that aspect: the teaching, insight, the psychological, emotional, and spiritual intuition it gives us concerning the Christian life and service, whatever our condition may be—mothers, husbands, wives, workers, servants. God wants to dig deeper cisterns within us so that more of his water, his depth, and his wisdom can fit inside us, and so that we may be better able to bless others, bless ourselves, and thus be happy.

It says that he ate, drank, and went back to sleep; and when the angel of the Lord returned, he touched him: “Get up and eat, because a long journey remains ahead of you.” And Elijah eats again, regains his strength, and then God sends him on a journey.

I believe this whole experience is a physical journey through the desert, but it is also a psychological journey into himself; it is a profoundly deep journey in which the man enters his own psyche and comes to know himself better, because God’s journeys are both physical journeys and inner journeys. The Bible is full of journeys: Abraham, the people of Israel in the wilderness, this journey of Elijah—many journeys. Jesus was continually traveling. And those journeys teach many things: God dealing with us, taking us on psychological and existential journeys at the same time as they are physical journeys.

Then he says, “Eat and drink, because a long journey remains ahead of you.” It says, “…he walked forty days and forty nights…” That forty represents a kind of completeness; it was something full. He spent forty days fasting and eating simple food in solitude, in silence, walking through the desert, and I believe God was speaking to him and preparing him for a climactic experience, so that he would be able to understand everything and receive all the benefit God wanted to give him from that experience.

Then God subjects him to another highly symbolic lesson, where it says that he went into a cave. Again, the idea of the cave is the place where we ourselves—our own psyche, our own soul—it is a dark place like a cocoon, a chrysalis into which we enter so that the life of God may be manifested more clearly. And there in that cave, God is preparing him, and then the word of the Lord came to him and said:

“…What are you doing here, Elijah?” God’s questions are questions designed, like those of a psychiatrist, to elicit instructive answers from us. What are you doing here, Elijah? Because that question was intended to draw out something hidden within Elijah, and he answered him, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left.”

You see that idea of feeling alone against the whole world, and that everyone else is shameless while I am the only one with the integrity to remain in my place. He does not know that there are seven thousand people who have not bowed their knees to Baal. But he thinks, I am the only one left; they have killed everyone. That sense of “I am the only one”—I often see many Christians in this church and in other churches who feel that no one loves them, no one cares for them, no one appreciates them, and they are a prophecy being fulfilled every day. Because if you believe that people do not love you or appreciate you, then they will not love you or appreciate you.

Whereas if a person believes that he or she is valuable and positive, believes that he or she has things to contribute, and is easygoing, people bless that person, and then that person will have more peace. It would take a long time to explain, but that is a little something extra for you.

God asks him, “What are you doing here?” because he wants, as it were, to dig into that part of the wound within Elijah: his belief that he is the only one, that there is no one else like him, and that he is alone and abandoned, and that not even God is fully aware of his needs. That is why he wants to die, why he wants God to kill him.

Then he says to him, “Uh-huh, so that is what you believe. Go outside.” And you know the story: Elijah is there in front of the cave, with something like a theater of the desert before him, and the first thing he sees is a great and mighty wind that comes sweeping through. It is so strong that it breaks apart mountains and shatters rocks; it is an utterly powerful wind. And he says, “Well, God must be here.” But it passed, and God did not appear to him or manifest himself.

And afterward, it says, an immensely powerful earthquake comes, but the Lord is not in the earthquake either. And after that comes a tremendous fire, but the Lord was not in the fire either. When the Bible presents things in that ritualistic form, the same thing one after another, it is because it wants to teach us a lesson.

Why wind, earthquake, and fire? Why those three manifestations? And God was not in any of them, because Elijah was a man of earthquake, wind, and fire, and he was accustomed to seeing God in powerful and violent manifestations like himself. And he thought, each time he saw one of these things, there is the Spirit of the Lord wanting to tell me something. And God was not in any of them.

God was telling Elijah, “Look, I am more than wind, earthquake, and fire. I have another, very different manifestation—the one you saw in that baked cake, in that water, and in the service you received.”

Again, I believe God wanted to show Elijah an aspect of himself that Elijah was not accustomed to seeing: the merciful, compassionate, tender, kind, patient God—the servant. And then it says that after those three powerful manifestations, there came a gentle, quiet whisper, delicate and peaceful.

Why does Scripture take the trouble to describe that whisper as quiet and delicate? Because I believe there was a lesson in it. And it says that when Elijah heard it, he knew how to discern the presence of God, covered his face with his cloak, and stood at the entrance to the cave; and there the Lord spoke to him again. God was in the gentle whisper.

Brothers and sisters, sometimes we become accustomed to the noise and commotion, the jumping and shouting, and the sisters’ hair buns falling out, and we think, “God is there.” Look, many times God is in the silence, in the stillness, in a gentle and quiet song; that is where the Lord is—in the gentle moments. Sometimes a person who does not say much may have more of the presence of God than a loudmouth who makes a great commotion.

Learn to discern the presence of God. Do not let yourselves be deceived by all kinds of schemes, speeches, other human things, and human contrivances. No; discern: where is the presence? After the noise and all the commotion, what do I take home with me? What did I learn? What did God say to me? What did God speak? What is in that ministry? What is in that life? What is in that style? That is what matters.

Nowadays people are searching everywhere for the next manifestation of the Spirit of God. Wherever someone announces, “Come here, because here we are going to cast all the demons out of you,” everyone rushes over there. And that is why they do not grow: because they do not remain in one place long enough to be dealt with. Discern the presence of God, because God is not as superficial as we sometimes want to make him.

In that gentle and quiet whisper, God speaks to him and asks him again, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And Elijah answers him in the same way. Then, in verse fifteen, God tells him, “Go, return by your way through the wilderness of Damascus, and when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael king over Syria; you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat, from Abel-meholah, to be prophet in your place.”

What is God showing him through this? Elijah, I am in control. I am in control of Syria, that enemy nation that is persecuting Israel. I am even in control of the world out there that does not know me—so much so that I anoint and unanoint its kings. And I am in control of Israel too. I am going to choose the next king, and you are going to anoint him. And as for you, I want you to rest and take a retreat; it is time for you too to move on to another stage of your life.

But God did not want Elijah to leave this world without knowing that side of Him, because God is supremely interested in our knowing Him. There is a passage in Jeremiah that haunts me—I believe it is chapter 4—which says that the wise man should not boast in his wisdom, or the valiant man in his valor, or the strong man in his strength, but if he must boast, let him boast in knowing and understanding Me, says the Lord, that I am a God of mercy and justice and judgment, for these are the things I desire.

What interests God most is that we know Him just as He is, in all His complexity, and that is what He wanted: for Elijah to know Him in both of His dimensions. That is why He takes him through this experience, and so that Elijah might know himself better.

I imagine that when Elijah emerges from this experience, he emerges purified, lighter, a better servant, more aware of his own inadequacies and his own weakness as a man. And those are very powerful and very necessary lessons. God wants to reveal Himself to your life, and God wants to teach you aspects of Himself and of yourself that you will not come to know except in the wilderness, so do not be afraid to enter into those experiences. Get everything you can out of them, and become accustomed to being ministered to and to ministering to that wonderfully meticulous, detail-oriented God who wants to reveal Himself to you in all His fullness, because, after all, that is what matters most.

If He wishes, He can evangelize the whole world with just one little angel whom He sends out there, but what He likes most is having intimacy with His children, having them love Him and know Him, and that is what He wants through trials and difficulties. As you can see here, through his trial, his tragedy, his ministerial failure, Elijah came to know God in a very beautiful way, and to know himself better as well.

If you are going through tribulations and trials, I encourage you to ask yourself, “God, what are You accomplishing through all of this? What do You want to do in me?” And the deeper you go into the wilderness, enter that cave for a while and let God speak to you. Amen.

Bow your head, and let us thank the Lord and ask God to help us be a church both of the fire and of the gentle, quiet whisper. Father, may Your Word continue to speak to us today, Lord, and may we leave here strengthened and enriched, Lord, so that we may be better servants of Yours. Thank You for not leaving us barren and fruitless. Thank You for dealing with us. Thank You for loving us enough to take the time to work on us.

And thank You for not giving us everything we want, Lord, and for sometimes giving us what we do not want. We love You, and we receive everything that comes from Your hand, Lord. We worship You and bless You, Father. Thank You, Lord Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, just one more moment—I know that time is passing. If anyone would like to receive prayer and would like to stand right where you are, concerning what we have discussed, or if you would like to receive Christ as Lord and Savior, we open this moment for that as well. If God has spoken to you in any way and you want to take that step of faith this morning, I invite you to stand right where you are; we can pray for you as well. Anyone?

God bless you, sister. If there is anyone else. God bless you. We love you. God bless you. God loves you very much. Amen. Anyone else?

I know that God is going to move. Back here, this brother as well—in these lives. God is touching you concerning this word that has been preached. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Father.

Lord, I bless my brothers and sisters this morning, whom You know just as You knew and know Elijah, and I bless them in the in the name of Jesus. And I ask You to make this word, Lord, real and living and powerful in their lives. Draw them closer to You, Holy Father. And if they are going through tribulations and needs, we declare Your power, Lord, moving, regenerating, working, restoring, strengthening, transforming these lives, Father. I bless them in Your name.

Draw them closer to You, Lord; draw them closer to You. If you have stood to receive Christ as Lord and Savior, actively confess Him in your heart. Say, “Lord, I receive You as my Lord and Savior, and I confess You as my God. Come into my life and transform me. Fill me with Your Spirit. I consecrate myself to Your service, Lord.”

Father, bless Your children; bless this church, Lord; bless this people and this word within us, Lord. We receive it and make it our own this morning. Thank You, Father, in the in the name of Jesus. I bless you, my beloved brothers and sisters. Amen.