“So he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” 

Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. 

So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

(1 Kings 19:10-13)

I have always loved this story. Elijah was a prophet to the Lord who was unpopular and persecuted, and now at the end of hope. He calls out to the Lord in desperation: I alone am left. And then the Lord answers him, but not in the great wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in a “still small voice.”  So many things in this passage feel relatable: feeling that our beliefs are everywhere rejected and attacked, feeling alone, feeling despair, looking for or expecting the Lord to answer our prayers in obvious and loud ways. And then how gently the Lord does speak to us. 

But we can only hear the Lord after the other chaos dies down. The Lord isn’t in the loud and all consuming events that demand our attention. The Lord is in the quiet and the stillness. Of course we can only really hear the Lord in our own lives when we leave a still space for Him to speak in to. 

And similarly, we can only really hear others’–our neighbor, friend, and family– when we allow a space for them to speak. When we actually listen. 

I have been noticing lately how many times I fall short of really listening. Especially since listening is something I’ve always thought myself “good at.” But boy is there room to grow! I want to be better at listening. I want to remember to kneel down and hear why my toddler is truly upset rather than try to brush it over and hustle them to the next thing. I want to put down my phone and give undivided attention when someone (even my children!) are talking to me. I want to pause preparing my epiphany or lengthy agreement, and just hear what a friend is saying to me and what it means to them. I want to ask why someone cares about something that feels dramatically different from what I prioritize. I want to stop trying so hard to appear like a good listener, and actually just listen. 

I appreciate that in the story of Elijah, we see him telling the Lord exactly how he is feeling. He is upset and even accusatory, and that seems to be okay. We don’t have to pretend with the Lord. When we ourselves are trying to listen, we have to work to put aside ourselves, our ego, our snap judgements, our differing beliefs, our impatience, our to-do lists. But when it comes to the Lord, we can come to Him with all of our problems: all of our grief, all of our despair, all of our condemnation. And He will just listen to it. And even better, He will have answers. 

At the end of this segment with Elijah, the Lord tells him that though he may feel alone, “ Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel” (1 Kings 19:18) who have not forsaken the Lord. Even when we feel the most lost, we aren’t, not really. As a dear friend recently said to me: we may feel off our path, but we are still on the Lord’s path. And when we quiet and listen, we can hear Him and see the way forward, just like Elijah did. 

And on a related note, I think that when I do better at listening to others in my life, those close to me and those I have differences with, that quiets some of the distress in my spirit, and I can see the Lord’s path more clearly too.