He is in the Whisper

I am reading through the Bible in a year, and although it has been a challenge, it has also been more than worth the efforts. My love for God's Word has increased by much and I am reading things that never really get touched on in a Sunday morning service. Things that Beth Moore will probably never write a bible study about. There is so much I have never noticed or heard of before, and as a student of God's Word for the last 21 years, (minus a hiatus of about 4 to 6 years) that surprises me! Not that I think I am some sort of "Biblical Scholar", I certainly do not! I'm just shocked at the amount of stories I do not recognize AT ALL! So, I highly recommend this goal.

Today as I was reading about the "god off" (think dance off or sing off) between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, I asked God if he would perform a miracle like that today. I pictured me in my head, telling all my friends that are unbelievers that I could ask God to perform a miracle with fire. I pictured myself fretting all day, wondering if God would show up. I found myself sure that the project would fail. Then I wondered what this meant about God, not to mention my obviously complete lack of faith. Doesn't believing that God could and would do something earth shattering, make it happen?? The Bible says that the faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains! Sounds pretty earthshattering to me. But it also says not to test God. And here, like in so many other ways, God is once again outside the reach of my human comprehension.

Besides falling in love with God's word, and finding out how much I have never heard, I am also forming lots and lots of questions. I am not, however, losing faith by questioning, I am gaining faith. In the book The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes "These forget that their whole life is enshrouded in mystery. They fail to consider that any real explanation of even the simplest phenomenon in nature lies hidden in obscurity and can no more be explained than can the mystery of the Godhead". Or really any inexplicable mystery of God. He goes on to say "This world after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it..... We cover our deep ignorance with words, but we are ashamed to wonder, we are afraid to whisper "mystery."

So, back to my "god off". Would God make a showing? I don't know (and I'm not planning to test my theory). But I continued to wonder, and so I continued reading. And as is the case with God's Word, the majority of the time, the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself! In 1 Kings after the fire of God consumed the offering, God speaks with Elijah and this is what He says: "'Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD' And behold the LORD passed by, and a great wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks 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 the sound of a low whisper."

It doesn't mean that God is absent if He doesn't perform earthshattering miracles in our lives. He is present in our lives like the whisper of a loving mother to her newborn child, like the whisper of a man to his young bride, like the whisper of the wind through the leaves in the trees. A whisper doesn't force our attention. However it does require stillness and quiet to receive it. So my question became, will I be still and hear His whisper?

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God..."