The sound of a low whisper...

I'm going to share now an entry from my journal from this past summer. Sometime, I'll share my whole story from the summer. But for now, just one entry will do. Some back ground information: I went on a trip to the Holy Lands, so this is an entry from when I was in Israel. We had spent the day wandering around different parts of Galilee.

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My favorite part was Mt. Carmel. So that's what I'll talk about here. We, of course, went through the story of Elijah defeating the prophets of Baal. Now the story has a lot more context for me. So I'll go through it again here.

The Jezreel Valley, in the time of Elijah, was consumed by Baal worship. After the kingdom split, the northern kingdom - Israel - went astray and ended up worshipping Baal profusely. The Jezreel Valley is in the north. Right on the edge of the Jezreel Valley is Mt. Carmel. This also happens to be a sacred place of Baal. (Oh, I forgot to mention that the Jezreel Valley is very fertile - it is beautiful, lush, and green. Baal is a fertility god and a god of rain - well, rain brings fertility, so it makes sense.) Anyway, so Elijah comes along and says, "it's not going to rain until I say so - when Yahweh says so, actually." So, there's a drought. This is throwing Yahweh in the face of those Baal worshipers who think Baal controls the rain. Eventually, Ahab is fed up with this. Elijah challenges him to a duel. Elijah and 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Ashera (Baal's consort) went up to Mt. Carmel. First, the prophets of Baal build an alter, sacrifice meat on it, and pray to Baal to set it aflame. They even resort to some weird ritual of slashing themselves. Elijah smack talks them some, saying that maybe Baal is sleeping or going to the bathroom. Then it's Elijah's turn. He builds an alter and does the whole sacrificial meat thing. And he digs a trench around it as a moat. He pours a ton of water on it. (Where he gets the water because of the drought, I'm not totally sure.) Then he prays to Yahweh to set it on fire. Now, on image of Baal is him holding up a bolt of lightning. Another name for lightning is the fire from heaven. After Elijah prays, 'fire from heaven'
comes down onto the alter and everything is engulfed in flames and is burnt to ashes. Yahweh just totally owned Baal at his own game, on Baal's home court.

Here's the thing, a melding of Yahweh and Baal had been occuring in those days. Remember me writing about the two standing stones in the temple at Arad? [I'll be sure to write about that later in another blog.] Yahweh and "his wife" - Ashera. That's right - the wife of Baal. So there was this intermixing of Yahweh and Baal. This thought could explain what happens next.

Jezebal - king Ahab's queen - was mad at Elijah for killing all the prophets of Baal after defeating them. She vowed to slaughter Elijah as he had slaughtered the prophets. This scared Elijah, so he ran away. But he had just defeated all of those prophets of Baal because Yahweh had his back! Why should he be afraid now? Perhaps it's because he had just seen Yahweh act as Baal would, and he was starting to question the reality of Yahweh being the one and only true God overall or if there was just some blend that was a coverall for the truth. So Elijah ran away. He ran to Beersheva - which is all the way in the south! I'm guessing it was one of those thinking-runs. So he just kept running. Now he is in the Negev - a desert wilderness far away from Baal worship. And it is here that Elijah encounters God most profoundly. The LORD, Yahweh, had Elijah stand out on a mount before Him. A mighty wind tore through the mountains, then there was an earthquake, then a fire, but Yahweh was in none of those. All of those are Baal images of being strong and mighty, tearing through mountains. After all that had passed, there was the thinnest silence - that was where Yahweh was. All of a sudden, Yahweh removed Himself as far away from Baal as possible. He is geographically as far away as he can be from Baal worship. Then, in all the physical imagery, Yahweh has made Himself the exact opposite of Baal - completely distinguishing Himself from Baal. That is when Elijah learns what his name actually declares.

Yahweh is God.
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What a profound thing to have God come to you in the thinnest silence. Some translate that as a low whisper.

I think I need that low whisper.

...a great and strong 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. -- 1 Kings 11-12

A father to the fatherless...

It was several years ago that I worked at a camp for a little while during the summer. My friend and I worked there together. (Maybe sometime in the future I will share the story of how I got to that camp in the first place.) Anyway, it was our last day there and my friend's parents drove up (about 10 hours) to pick us up. They planned to stay the night and we'd all drive back together the next day.

That night, my friend, her dad, and I wanted to star-gaze. So we climbed to the top of a tall tower (that has a climbing wall on it for the campers) and sat, watching the stars. My friend leaned her head on her dad's shoulder as he put his arm around her. It was such a beautiful picture of a father and daughter's affection.

I began to desperately wish my dad was with us so I could lean on him. When I came back to reality and figured out that would not happen because my dad was a 10 hour drive away, I started to focus all my wishing on something else. I started desperately hoping that her dad would offer his shoulder to me as well. Or maybe he would at least put his arm around me. I didn't want to do it myself. I wanted him to initiate it so that I would not be imposing on him and the special time he had with his daughter. I sat there, almost in tears, waiting for him to put his arm around my shoulder and bring me in closer to him.

As it turns out, he wasn't the one to do that. As I gazed at the beautiful night sky, hoping for a father to put his arm around me, I heard that small whisper.

I'm your father tonight.

It was then that I knew why I was up there without my dad and why my friend's dad did not put his arm around me. That night, I got to have the best father put His arm around me and draw me close to Him. My heavenly father wanted to have that special father-daughter time and affection with me that night.

That is something I will treasure in my heart always

Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the LORD; exult before him! Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. -- Psalm 68:4-5

Remember the wind...

When I was in high school, during one winter break, I was in a rough spot with someone I knew. At this point in time, we were not on speaking terms. I don't like that fact. I think it's a very sad state to be in. Nevertheless, that's the way it was.

One day, I decided to take a run. There's a pretty big square to run in my neighborhood that is the way I usually take. I put on all my running gear and headed out for my jog. less than half way through, I turned the corner so as to head west. Wind suddenly was blowing hard at me. The wind was gusting east. Also it was snowing. Needless to say, that was a pretty tough spot to run in. I like to pray while I'm running. So I started praying, or really complaining to God.

God, why does this have to be so hard? I just wanted a nice run, some good exercise. But this stupid wind. What's up with the wind? This is dumb. Take the wind away. Or maybe I should just stop running.

I wanted to give up and just walk the rest of the stretch. But I kept jogging anyway, complaining about how hard it was to run in the wind like that. Finally, I turned the corner to head south, and basically forgot about the wind.

I continued south, but as I was nearing the next corner, I realized something. That person I was on the rocks with lived right on that corner.

Oh no.

I started to pray again, this time for strength.

Lord, he lives there. I'm scared. What if he's outside? I don't want to go past his house. But I don't want to change my course now just because of one little thing like this. But this will be hard to run past his house. Please, help me. Help me just get past his house. Give me extra strength to get past his house, please, Lord.

I rounded the corner to run east.

A gust of wind hit me from behind and pushed me forward.

I heard a voice whisper,

Remember the wind.

The same wind that had caused me to struggle before, the same wind that I had complained about, the same wind that I didn't want anything to do with, that same wind was just what I needed to get me past the hardest part in my run. It's what gave me the strength to go past the house that I was scared of and complete my run.

Now when I'm going through something hard in life, I think about that wind. Maybe life is hard now. But in the future, this hard time will be used to bring me through something much harder than just a little bit of wind.

Sometimes you just have to remember the wind.


More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. --Romans 5:3-5

My heart is bursting, Lord, to tell of all you've done...

Hi, my name is Brittany. I decided to start a blog today. Well, that's pretty obvious. Anyway, I thought this would be a good place to share some pretty cool stories with anyone who wants to listen. God has done some incredible things in my life. I have all these stories floating around in my head. Some of them are written down in journals or something of that sort. But what good do those stories do for others if I don't share them? My heart is bursting to tell what God has done for me and what He has taught me. I love the everyday (or not so everyday) stories that show the glory, power, and mystery of our great God. That's why I'm here. I'd like to share those stories with you and hope God uses my meager life to reveal something of Himself to you.