This week’s message, “God Is Not In There” explores 1 Kings 19:9–18 and invites us to reflect on how God meets us in exhaustion, questions, storms, and silence.
Elijah had been faithful. He had experienced an extraordinary victory. And then he reached the point where he simply could not carry any more.
God did not shame Elijah or tell him to try harder. God cared for him, listened to him, and eventually met him not in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the quiet.Sometimes God doesn’t shout.
Sometimes God whispers.And when God seems quiet, we should not mistake the silence for absence.This message also challenges us to practice the ministry of presence. When someone is hurting, we do not always need an explanation or the perfect words. Sometimes faithfulness looks like saying, “I don’t know, but I am here”—and staying.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sunday, April 9, 2026 — Sermon
Scripture: 1 Kings 19:9–18
Coming to the End of What You Can Carry
I don’t know if I’ve told you all this, but I went to the Presbyterian church up on Lookout Mountain, right across the street from my elementary school. They were both beautiful limestone buildings, and George Long was usually our preacher — that was his prayer every single sermon. So it’s very near and dear to my heart.
Sometimes the holiest prayer you can pray is not “use me, Lord,” but sometimes it’s just, “I can’t do this anymore.” Elijah has reached exactly that prayer.
Before we say anything else about Elijah, we need to notice something: he has come to the end of what he can carry. And honestly, it makes sense.
Just one chapter earlier, Elijah is on Mount Carmel, having what we might call the greatest day of his professional life. He has challenged the prophets of Baal to a showdown — you may recall the two altars, and they were trying to light the fire. The false prophets pray and shout and carry on, and nothing happens. Their god doesn’t come through for them. Then Elijah prays, and the fire falls from heaven. Fire from heaven.
If you’re Elijah, you’re thinking, nailed it. God is on my side, everybody knows it. The question of whose God is God has been settled. Then you cue the closing credits — mic drop, right? Except not really. Because Jezebel the queen, married to Ahab, hears about it and says essentially, “That’s cute. Now I’m going to kill you.”
Elijah runs. He goes to the wilderness, sits under a tree, and says, “I have had enough.” Not, “Lord, I am confident in your providence.” Not, “Lord, use this difficult season to grow me.” Just, “I have had enough.” And there’s something profoundly human about that. You can be faithful, you can be brave, you can have your Mount Carmel moment, you can even have fire fall from heaven — and then twelve hours later, discover you have absolutely nothing left.
God’s Practical Care
Elijah has come to the end of what he can carry. And what does God do? God doesn’t correct him. God doesn’t tell him to cheer up. God doesn’t hand him a Bible verse. God gives Elijah something to eat and lets him sleep. Then wakes him up and feeds him again, and lets him sleep again.
Which reminds me that Ruth Arnold preached on this passage back on March 15th of this year. She connected it to Ferncliff Camp — she said that if a counselor comes to her upset about something, she checks two basics: Have you slept? Have you eaten? A nap and a snack. And I think Ruth was onto something. Apparently God and Ferncliff had the same pastoral plan. Before we decide our faith is collapsing, let’s check whether we’ve had a good night’s sleep since Tuesday. Before we consider whether God has abandoned us, let’s check whether we’ve had lunch.
God’s care for Elijah is extremely practical. God treats Elijah like what he is — a human being, with a nervous system, who is hungry and exhausted. I love that, because sometimes we think being faithful means being less human: being less tired, less angry, less afraid, less needy. But God seems perfectly comfortable with where Elijah is.
So Elijah sleeps, and eats, and wakes up, and eventually travels forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God — which is where we pick up in the passage read to us earlier. And where does Elijah go on Mount Horeb? A cave. Kind of like a modern-day version of crawling into bed and pulling the covers over you.
The Sound of Sheer Silence
God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” God knows what Elijah is doing there — of course God knows. What God is really saying is: tell me the truth. And Elijah does. He says, “I’ve worked hard. I’ve been faithful, I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, and now I’m alone and they’re trying to kill me.”
God says, “Go out and stand on the mountain.” So Elijah goes outside, and then comes the wind — a huge, violent wind, the kind that breaks rocks. But the Bible says the Lord was not in the wind. Then an earthquake — the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then fire — the Lord was not in the fire. And then silence. Or something like silence.
This is where the original language gets really interesting. The Hebrew is difficult to translate literally, but at its most basic it means something like a sound of thin silence — something so quiet, so fine, so delicate that you could almost miss it. And that is when Elijah recognizes God. Not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire — in the thing he might almost overlook. The quiet.
I think that’s what makes the story unsettling. It’s not just the threat of being murdered — it’s that we want God to be obvious. We want flashing lights, a receipt, something unmistakable. But sometimes God doesn’t shout. Sometimes God whispers. Sometimes God is so gentle that we have to become quiet enough to notice.
Now, before anybody goes home and emails me because they think I’ve denied the doctrine of omnipresence — I haven’t. Omnipresence means God is present everywhere; there is nowhere God is not. God is present in creation, in the wind, even in earthquakes, in fire — we see that in the burning bush. This isn’t about a physical address for God. It’s about how we recognize God.
Don’t Confuse Spectacle with God
Elijah has spent his whole prophetic career dealing with dramatic signs — fire from heaven, big confrontations, big victories. Now God teaches him: don’t confuse spectacle with me. That’s a word I think we need, because we are suckers for spectacle. We think louder means truer. Have you ever noticed how commercials get almost twice as loud when they come on TV? They’re trying to convince you it’s true. We think bigger means better. We think certainty means wisdom. We think someone who speaks confidently must know what they’re talking about. Here’s one I’m guilty of: we think if something gives us goosebumps, it must be the Holy Spirit.
And Elijah says: maybe not. Sometimes the wind is just the wind. Sometimes an earthquake is just an earthquake. Sometimes fire is just fire. And sometimes God is in the thing we overlook — the quiet, the ordinary, the person sitting beside us, the hand reaching out, the snack, the nap, the mercy we didn’t think counted as a miracle.
Elijah in the Larger Story
Remember where this story sits. First Kings is part of a long, heartbreaking story — Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings. It’s the story of trying to live as God’s people, and it is not a success story. It’s a story of wandering, of kings who mess things up, of people who forget who God is. It’s a story of power being more important than faithfulness.
Solomon builds the temple; everything is glorious. Then Solomon dies, the kingdom splits, and the northern kingdom begins its long decline. Ahab and Jezebel promote the worship of Baal, and Elijah shows up and says, “Actually, that is not okay.” He’s the prophet who refuses to let the king become God. The kingdom keeps unraveling, and eventually Israel is conquered and the people are carried into exile.
So Elijah is sitting in the middle of a national disaster, asking a question that sounds painfully contemporary: Where is God when everything I thought I could count on is falling apart? That’s Elijah’s question. And often, it’s ours too.
What the Confirmation Class Taught Us
Which brings me to our confirmation class — Nick, Zach, Christian, Levi, Jacob, and Alex, this one’s for you. I hope you’re watching this on video, because over the past six weeks you’ve asked some remarkably grown-up questions.
One of you asked what it means that Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father. John and I looked at each other like, “Ooh — let’s look that up.” So we researched it and learned that “the right hand” is ancient language for authority and honor. It’s not some spot God happened to have open in heaven — Jesus shares in God’s reign. Jesus is not simply a figure from history whose teachings we occasionally dust off. Jesus is alive. Jesus reigns. Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Jesus is with God. “In the beginning was the Word” — that’s Jesus. “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Our passage from Matthew today gives us a picture of what that truth means — Jesus as God. The disciples are in a boat; we heard Kate Currie preach on this one. The wind is blowing, the waves are beating the boat around, and Jesus comes walking toward the disciples on the water. They’re terrified — which seems reasonable. Jesus says, “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” Peter says, in effect, “If it’s really you, tell me to come.” Jesus says, “Come.” (Jesus is probably thinking, oh boy, here we go.)
Peter gets out of the boat, and for a minute he’s actually walking on the water. Then Peter notices the wind, and suddenly everything falls apart. He sinks and cries out, “Lord, save me!” And Jesus reaches out a hand.
That’s the picture I want to put next to Elijah. Because God does not always show up by stopping the storm. Sometimes God shows up by reaching into it. Jesus doesn’t say, “Peter, calm down.” Jesus reaches out his hand. That’s it.
Why Does God Seem to Bless Some People More Than Others?
Another question one of the confirmation students asked was, “Why does God seem to bless some people more than others?” That’s pretty profound. I thought — well, congratulations, you’ve discovered one of the oldest questions in human history. Why her? Why him? Why not me? Why does that family seem to catch every break? Why does someone who prays for something get it while someone else prays just as hard and gets silence? Why does one person walk on water while another spends a Tuesday sitting under a tree wishing he were dead?
I don’t have a tidy answer, and I’m suspicious of anybody who does. But Elijah gives us at least this insight: God’s blessing is not the same thing as an easy life. Elijah sees fire fall from heaven and then falls apart. Peter walks on the water and then sinks. Being loved by God does not make you invulnerable. Faith is not a force field. The wind still comes. The earthquake still comes. The fire still comes. Sometimes life is just brutal — and Christianity does not require us to call brutal things good.
There’s a familiar response — some of you know this one well — “God is good all the time; all the time, God is good.” But let’s not use that as a religious version of duct tape. Your life is falling apart? God is good all the time. Someone died? God is good all the time. Your kid is struggling? God is good all the time. No. The honest response is: this is terrible. I don’t understand. I wish this weren’t happening. And still, God is good. Not because the terrible thing is good, but because God is good in the middle of it. God is present. God is faithful. God does not ever leave.
That’s a harder faith than just “God is good all the time.” But I think it’s a stronger one.
The Ministry of Presence
I’ve watched the Holy Spirit work through these confirmands and their good, hard questions — why does God do that, why does somebody else seem more blessed. What I hope they’ve learned, and what I have learned, is that faith is not about having the answers. Faith is being willing to bring your questions into the room, around the campfire.
And here’s where I hope they’ve learned something else too: the ministry of presence. When someone is questioning, or hurting, we think we need the perfect words. We don’t. Sometimes the most honest thing you can say is, “I don’t know, but I am here.” Then sit down. Stay. Have a snack. Listen. That is ministry. That is love. And sometimes that’s how God shows up — through us.
Closing
So — to Zach, Nick, Levi, Christian, Alex, and Jacob, and to everybody else listening — there will be days when you have had enough. There will be days when God feels obvious, and days when God feels painfully quiet. Don’t mistake the silence for absence. Listen for the thin silence. And when somebody else is in the cave, show up. When somebody is sinking, show up. When somebody is celebrating, show up. You don’t have to explain God to people. You don’t have to fix them.
The faith we have does not explain every unfair thing. There is no promise that we won’t get knocked around. But we do have the promise that God will never leave us nor forsake us — a promise that runs all through Scripture, from Deuteronomy to Joshua to Hebrews. Christ meets us where we are, hand outstretched to save us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.