Salt and Light

What are you doing here?

In 1 Kings 19 we read about Elijah fleeing from Jezebel, hiding fearfully in a cave, and asking the Lord to take his life. But what does God do? In verse 9 we read that “and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Now Elijah had just had one of the great victories of Old Testament history. He had mocked then totally routed 450 prophets of Baal – in front of their leader, Queen Jezebel. She had let Elijah know of her displeasure and he had run for his life. As with us nowadays, the Lord had His finger on the pulse. He knew where Elijah was and had sent angels to feed and water him. Still Elijah was not satisfied – still he was scared. So scared in fact that he asked God to take his life – presumably to spare him an imagined hideous death at Jezebels hand.

God tolerated this for a short time – he humoured Elijah. Then He sought him out and asked Elijah this now famous question. Of course, any student of etymology will tell you that there are FIVE ways of saying that question, depending where you place the emphasis.

1. What are you doing here? Emphasising the ‘what’.

2. What are you doing here? Your Mum probably asked you this one a few times

3. What are you doing here? You are not supposed to be here

4. What are you doing here? What are you doing – and probably why are you doing it?

5. What are you doing here? Why here and not where you are supposed to be doing it?

Poor old Elijah could only protest what he saw as the problem and, at the same time, point out how zealous he, Elijah, had been for the Lord. It was then that the Lord revealed Himself anew to Elijah, then sent him on his way on another tasking – presumably away from Jezebel – this time to anoint the next king of Syria.

The point here is that God often finds us doing things that are nothing to do with His will for us. Times when we are hiding or fearful about things in our life that we haven’t entrusted to Him. That is when He will frequently be heard asking us that same question – “What are you doing here?” The more we give of ourselves to God, the more He will reveal Himself to us and the more He can use us.

How can we be the ‘salt and light’ that Jesus commanded us to be if we are forever hiding in the caves of our minds? God always has things for us to do – just as He did for Elijah. Each one of us is as important to Gods work as Elijah was. We are to be light in this dark world by shining the light of Jesus upon all around us. Then, we can be salt so we can make them thirsty for what we’ve got.

Well ???