Good morning everyone,

I was reading in 1 Kings 19 a couple of mornings ago and saw something I’d like to share.
You know the story. Elijah has just come off a great victory over the prophets of Baal. God had proven Himself in a miraculous way to Elijah and all of Israel in I Kings 18! (It’s a wonderful story if you don’t know it I recommend you read it.)

Well that wicked Jezebel, the queen, heard what Elijah had done in cutting off the heads of the prophets of Baal and she swore she was gonna kill Elijah! So he ran and ended up in a cave in Mount Horeb. I guess another way to say it is he ended up in quarantine. There in isolation he experienced something he would have never experienced without all the trouble and fear.
God gave him a lesson that we could learn from. God sent a great strong wind that was so powerful it rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks, after the wind an earthquake, after the earthquake a fire but the Bible says that the Lord wasn’t “in” any of those big frightening things. After the fire, the Bible says, “a still small voice.”

Once God had Elijah’s attention through isolating him, God was able to speak to him in a way that impacted the course of the rest of his life.

Application and conclusion:
What if God isn’t in the Coronavirus at all? What if God isn’t in the recession, layoffs and shutdowns at all? What if God has allowed this so He could slow His people down long enough to isolate them in the cave and then speak to them for once!! While everyone is scrambling to “connect” and get plugged in online what if they are missing the entire point of what is going on?
Ecclesiastes 3:7b …”a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;…”

Maybe the good Lord has allowed all this to get the attention of the lost and the ear of His born again children. Then, when He turns all this around, He wants us to have a message from Him for them, that could change the course of our lives and ministries as well as their eternity!!

If we fight it and refuse to hear we may miss the whole point and fail in our effectiveness for God when we finally get to leave the cave.
Just a thought.

Love you all in the Lord,
Pastor