Just to Better Understand the Sound of a Whisper

In the movie "A Knight's Tale," the hero, William, is introduced to a crowd by his herald, Geoffry Chaucer.  The herald is trying to buy time while William struggles to fix his armor and arrive on time.  He launches a long flowery speech highlighting the fictitious trials of his master.  One of them was,

"In Greece he spent a year in silence just to better understand the sound of a whisper."

While the story in the movie, and the movie itself are fiction...there is something to grasp there.

This story keeps going through my mind.  I'll paraphrase, but you can find it in 1 Kings 18-19.

In Israel, King Ahab and his charming wife Jezebel have just had the prophets of God slaughtered.  All of them (except a few a guy named Obadiah saved in some caves.)

Elijah, a prophet of God, has just challenged the prophets of Baal and Asherah to a throw down.  That story makes me chuckle cause I kinda see Elijah like Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" movies.  He's this snarky old curmudgeon.  He taunts the other prophets that they aren't chanting loud enough, or that their god is on vacation, or sleeping.  (The goal was who ever got their god to light their sacrifice on fire was the real God.)

Elijah just rubs salt in the wounds.  Not only has he been talking smack all day, he has his alter and offering doused in water.  Three times.  Then he prays to God, and God responds by lighting the offering on fire and, the stones, and the ground and the trench full of the water run off.

Then he has the prophets caught and put to death.  The king runs home to his lovely wife and tells her how Elijah showed up her prophets and had them all killed.  She sends a messenger to Elijah with this message,

"May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."

Pretty harsh words.  And for some reason, Elijah is shaking in his sandals.  He runs away.  Out into the desert.  An angel shows up and sends him to Mount Horeb.  The place Moses encountered God as the burning bush.  Where the ten commandments were given.  A holy mountain.  He gets there and spends the night in a cave.

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Elijah "understood the sound of a whisper."  He knew that it meant God was approaching.  He listened, and responded.  And God told him what to do next.

Have you heard God whispering lately?  It is easy to drown him out with the all distractions and escapes we have at our every command.  Don't wait for God to speak to you with, "the writing on the wall."  Cause that communique was a final judgment.  Do not wait for the big signs.

Spend some time in silence to better understand the sound of God speaking to you.   And He has lots to say to us.


grace, peace + hope
-Jesse