1 Kings 19:12 and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn't in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.
The Bible tells many stories of clamour and noise and also the seeking after quiet and a space to re-charge our spiritual batteries. Jesus often got up early to go and find a quiet place to pray and commune with the heavenly Father. Finding space and peace is a quest that many in religious orders are privy to but at the cost of total dedication and self discipline. I well remember going on my first silent retreat – it was so radically different to the noise of our family home with two pre teen children, their friends, the hi-fi and the activities of living that sometimes I would say, “Stop the world, I want to get off for a while!”
So after the clamour of home the retreat was a shock. The silence of that first evening was becoming more deafening as the minutes slowly ticked by. First I heard the crickets chirping their calls as the sun went down, then distant sirens clamouring for attention as another worldly traffic offence needed police attention; then the wind under the eaves seemed to moan mournfully and disturbingly; this followed by my tummy gurgling after supper as digestion clicked in and then my chair creaked every time I moved to get comfortable – it seemed to go on and on, and concentration on Ecclesiastes 5.1-7 was not happening!
Elijah also felt pressure to stop his world and get off so he ran away from God pleading to die as he felt he had nothing more to give to God. God dealt with him by first sending attention getting noise.
After a time of silence on the mountain, the earthquake, storms, fire got his attention, but God chose to speak to him in the silence by a "gentle whisper‟. In the silence Elijah heard and grew spiritually and in strength. Thomas Carlyle wrote; "Silence is deep as eternity; speech as shallow as time.‟