There is no question that Elijah is being tested by God when, atop Mount Horeb, the dejected, dispirited, and dismayed prophet encounters the whirlwind, the earthquake, and eventually that still small voice. But we would be foolish to think that the test only began and ended on Horeb. 

If anything, Horeb was the answer key…

The test was at Carmel.

From Triumph to Flight

On Mount Carmel, Elijah had seen fire fall from heaven. The prophets of Baal were defeated, the people confessed Yahweh as God, and a years-long drought was broken. 

It was the great moment of Elijah’s prophetic triumph. Carmel is the defining point of a career. 

On Carmel, Elijah was the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Move over, Michael Jackson, we’ve got a new “King of Pop”!

Surely this not only vindicated God Himself, but Elijah had “passed the test”! 

Success! Victory!

But as God would have it, this was not the defining moment… neither for God nor for Elijah. 

It was simply the beginning of a test of faith. Elijah was not prepared for that.

No one ever is. And that’s what makes God’s tests so perfect for us.

He’s the “King of the Pop-Quiz”!

The story continues. When Jezebel heard the news, she sent a messenger with a threat: within a day, Elijah would be dead. 

Astonishingly, after witnessing the God who conquered Baal… the God who had shown Himself time and again as being the God of Salvation… nevertheless Elijah fled! 

From the mountain of victory he plunged into fear. Does anyone really think Jezebel’s threats would have been “too much” for God?

Apparently Elijah did. 

Don’t fool yourself… you flee too.

Here lies a striking irony. The prophets of Baal had spent the entire contest acting as though God could be tested. The whole show was about one god or Another proving himself. 

Yahweh, the one true God of the Bible, does not need to prove Himself.

Instead, it pleases Him to put us into circumstances where our false notions of Him, along with our misplaced trust in success, needs to prove itself… and fail.

God was not the one being tested at Carmel. HA! 

God was doing the testing. 

The question was not whether the Lord would act, but whether Elijah would trust Him beyond the spectacular moment.

Was Elijah more interested in success than he was interested in Yahweh Himself?

Are we?

How often is this God’s Pop Quiz?

Alone Under the Broom Tree

Elijah traveled into the wilderness, dismissed his servant, and sat alone under a broom tree. 

There he prayed… not for strength but for death: "It is enough. Take away my life."

The scriptures give us an intense image of what it looks like to fail the test of faith. 

Before we can trust in God, we must be broken of our trust in the world, of our trust in ourselves, and of our trust in success.

We may not feel like Elijah feels - because success and talent and prosperity are intoxicating as false gods.

But when we see Elijah, the curtain of our own reality is being pulled back. In 1 Kings 19 we see what God sees.

Elijah’s forlorn lament is, in fact, the only possible consequence of a faith directed anywhere other than Yahweh… anywhere other than Jesus.

Elijah saw only himself: “I am no better than my fathers…” As if Elijah’s life consisted entirely in what he would accomplish for God.

No wonder this version of Elijah’s reality leads him into despair and the grave.

Elijah didn’t need to worship Baal to have a false god, he worshipped himself.

Therefore the only future he could see was desolation, despair, and death.

It’s the future he deserves. It’s the future we all deserve.

God would soon remind Elijah that his future was not built on success, but on God’s gracious Word. 

But at that moment, Elijah could not see it. This is the crucial moment of our testing.

Our blindness must be healed by God, not by our own reason or strength.

Salvation is a miracle, not a realization.

But when God heals our blindness, it rarely comes as fire from heaven, it will be in the meekness of His Word… the humility of a baptism…

It comes in the submissive love of Jesus who humbly goes to the cross.

That’s the still small voice. And it saves.

Before we get to that voice, though, there’s something else very important to notice about this low point in Elijah’s career.

When God seems most absent, He is in fact most near.

The very sense of His absence, in the heart and mind of a Christian, is evidence of His divine presence.

In other words, when we assume that God’s credibility is on trial before us, we have inverted reality. 

Our doubts are part of God’s test. 

Elijah has misread the situation entirely: what looks to him like God’s weakness or failure is the very arena in which God is shaping his faith.

God’s Provision

Before correcting him, God sustained him. 

An angel touched him and provided bread and water, twice. 

In that strength Elijah journeyed forty days to Horeb, the mountain of God. 

The test was not over.

Remember that God sustains you.

And remember that if He is testing you, He’s near.

The Voice in the Stillness

At Horeb Elijah witnessed wind, earthquake, and fire. Time and again these are the signs of success. Think Sinai. For that matter, think about Carmel!

But the Lord was not "in" them. Now do you see what this means?

It’s not that God doesn’t use impressive and resounding displays of His power to communicate His will. Of course He does that.

It’s that Elijah, who has become too interested in “impressive and resounding”, needs to be taught to listen in silence.

In that stillness Elijah covers his face. The test is over.

And because God has taken all of our burden upon Himself, it’s never about whether we pass or fail.

It’s only ever about repentance and restoration.

As it turns out, God’s tests are not designed for pass/fail, they are teaching tools.

They are specifically designed to turn our attention away from what distracts us… back to His quiet speech.

Back to the Scriptures.

Back to the Sacraments.

Back to His Son.

Recommissioned

For Elijah, as for us, it’s also back to work.

Return, anoint kings, call Elisha, and know that you are not alone. You can read it yourself in 1 Kings 19:15-18.

We all have work to do. We are God’s worksmanship, after all, created by Him(!) to do the good works which He has prepared in advance(!) for us to do.

If you’ve ever been through a trying time, you’ve been tested. Rejoice! God has brought you and taught you!

And if you are in the midst of a trying time, LISTEN! 

Receive His quiet gifts in body and blood at His Table.

Read His word in the quiet of the morning.

There you will find it… Psalm 34:18… “The LORD is very near to the one whose heart is broken.”

What We Learn from Elijah

Faith can be tested in the wake of victory as much as in the midst of failure. It is tested in moments of silence, loneliness, and distorted perception. It is tested when we imagine God to be on trial before us, rather than recognizing that our doubts themselves are the very evidence of His testing hand.

Elijah’s story reminds us that even in our worst isolation, God sustains, speaks, and sends. The God who answered by fire is He who died on the cross. The Lord is not measured by our perceptions of success, but by His promises, which never fail.

Prayer: Lord God of Elijah, meet us in our weariness. Feed us with Your Word, sustain us in our weakness, and remind us we are not alone. Turn our despair into trust, and our solitude into service. Amen.