What are you doing here?
Elijah travels 40 days and 40 nights to get to the mountain of God. Angels have fed him just so that he will be able to make the journey. Now he is here. At the very mountain of God. Waiting in the cave for God to show up.
When God arrives, He asks Elijah a question; a question to which surely God knows the answer.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah right away pours out his complaint. You can tell this lament has been building up within him. The disillusionment… I have been very zealous for you God…and it didn’t work out the way I planned. The grief…they have prophets to death by the sword, I am the only one left. The fear…now they are trying to kill me too.
God doesn’t immediately address any of these concerns. Instead he offers Elijah the gift of experiencing God’s presence. He tells him to “go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by” I Kings 19:11. What an amazing gift.
Yet after experiencing the wind, the earthquake, the fire and then finally God’s gentle whisper, when God asks the question again… “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah’s answer remains unchanged. It is the same word for word. He has experienced the very presence of God but he is still so wrapped up in his troubles that it is almost as if he missed it.
God, ever patient and gracious, does not rebuke Elijah. In fact, he gives Elijah a solution to his problem and Elijah goes away to carry out the plan. However, I wonder if he left feeling any more refreshed than when he arrived? I see myself in this story. I come to the altar of God, knowing my thirst, how greatly I need more of God. However, when I arrive there I am so caught up with all the day to day worries, the problems and concerns that I forget just to spend time in God’s presence. When God asks, “What are you doing here?” Like Elijah, I list my complaints, my fears, my griefs. God listens, he hears, he is faithful to answer.
What if I answered differently today.
What if when God said, “What are you doing here, Alison?”
I answered, “I just want more of you.”
What if when God’s presence filled me up, the problems I came in with fell away? What God’s presence could soothe the grief, the fears and worries that follow me all the day long. What if it was God’s presence that I was missing all along?
