and this is what happened during my Meditation..

…so I was alone in the house, well there is a sleeping grandson in the upstairs, but total silence… how peaceful it is. I did my morning devotions, exercised, picked up some toys my three-year-old twin grandsons had scattered and then sat down to meditate on God and His Word.

I thought about how Elijah had prayed using sixty-three words to ask God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to show these prophets of Baal that He was the true and living God by accepting and sending fire to consume the bulls, which had been slaughtered and then doused with twelve barrels of water.

As I envisioned that scene, I could imagine the look on the faces of the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal standing there, watching this awesome fire consume the sacrifice! Thinking about that today I wondered if they didn’t all need to go change their undergarments…seeing this one old prophet of God bring fire from heaven down with so few words after all their efforts to raise their gods to attention with all their screaming and begging, cutting themselves and dancing around their altars! But I digress…

Let’s skip to my point…after that miracle of fire, Elijah had all the prophets captured and taken down to the Kishon Valley and there…killed them all.

Zip on past the King telling his wife, Jezebel, what had happened and her threat to have him dead “by this time tomorrow” …we see that Elijah has heard that news and suddenly the victory of the fire and then killing all the prophets of Baal left his mind and he was terrified…of this woman!

He decided it would be better to die at the hands of God than to wait for her, so in this moment of sheer panic and cowardice (did I say that out loud?) he put his plan to die before God and lay down under a broom tree to die…

To his surprise he was awakened by an angel who told him to eat. There was hot bread and water (every time I make a batch of fresh Pita bread I wonder if it was like that) which he ate and fell back to sleep. He was awakened again and told to eat again so that he could make the long trip to Mt. Sinai. He ate and traveled for forty days and nights until he reached the mountain and went into a cave. Again, he prayed, and this time God spoke to him asking what he was doing there! Elijah repeated his prayer. God told him to go out and stand before his on the mountain, which he did from the mouth of the cave. Immediately there was such a strong wind that trees were uprooted, and rocks were pulled out of the sides of the mountain like pebbles, but he didn’t hear God’s voice. Then there was an awesome earthquake, the mountain rumbled and shook, and Elijah listened to hear God’s voice but again…no luck. Immediately there was a huge and terrible fire! Surely God was in this!! But NO! After that there came a still, small voice… and a gentle whisper, ahhh, there He is, it’s GOD! Elijah wrapped his face in his cloak and stood in the entrance of the cave where God gave him instructions on what he needed to do. These were things that needed to be accomplished before he could die and included anointing his replacement, Elisha!

OK, why did I tell you all of this, which I am sure you already knew in detail? 

As I sat listening for the voice of God to speak to me while meditating on Him, I heard the train whistle warning vehicles that it was coming, I heard the neighbor’s dog barking, I heard my house creaking…reminding me how old she is, but I did not hear God, however I did “feel” that I should read and listen to Psalm 8, which I did in three different translations. 

OK God, thank you, He reminded me of His majesty, his artistic creation of the moon and stars, of how He gave us, mere mortals, dominion over the earth and all that is in it!

In the words of my dad…WOW!

He spoke, I feel refreshed, thank you my Heavenly Father. I am reminded again that Jesus is coming soon, and I want to be ready for Him! Take a moment to read the beautiful Psalm of David, Psalm 8!