They gathered around the atrium and hoped upon hope that their prayers would be heard and answers given through raindrops. Every drop which dripped onto the floor of the villa spoke of hope. Hope that the divine would speak into the deafening silence of life. Stiff as the marble statues in the garden before them, they waited for the oracle to speak through splashes or see answers pictured in puddles. For the ancient Romans, their gods would speak through rain and thunder when the answers to life were lost.
“A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was a voice, a soft whisper. When Elijah heard [it], he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave”(1 Kings 19:11-13).
God put on a real show with the wind blowing, the earth shaking, and fire darting, but he wasn’t speaking to Elijah in any of those powerful and visible ways. Elijah was learning that God, who once spoke by fire that consumed a soaked altar sacrifice, does not always reveal himself in powerful, miraculous ways. What does this say to us? Some people think that the only place to find God is in something big, the impressive, or the miraculous. We look for God in the spectacular but miss him in the silence. I’m currently in silence, but I know that it’s the still, small voice that will answer me when I finally shut my mouth and listen.
Individual palpitations should swab myelinated to the lowest hypothermic isoleucine in [u][/u] to assure hpa dysfunction.