The Zephyr

The Zephyr

I love what Oswald Chambers wrote about Isaiah 6:8, “God did not direct His call to Isaiah— Isaiah overheard God saying, “…who will go for Us?”

I’d take it a step farther. Isaiah 6 begins with, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and His robe filled the temple.”

See, in order for Isaiah to have even head anything from God it depended completely upon how he saw God. Isaiah saw God as “the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and His robe filled the temple.”

I agree with Oswald 100% when he says, “Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude.”  We can only truly hear from God when we, like Isaiah, first see Him as the Lord Almighty on His high and lofty throne - with His glory spilling forth from the temple of our hearts.

Only then can we, like Isaiah, be in the position to hear the divine oratory; and then respond as Isaiah did in 6:8, “Here I am. Send me.”

In 1 Kings 19:11-12 we read about God talking to Elijah the prophet. “The LORD said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’” First a tornado comes and rips into the mountain, then an earthquake comes, and then a fire. We find out the LORD wasn’t in any of those. Finally we read, “And after the fire came a still small whisper” - a zephyr.

The story of the zephyr comes because Elijah was terrified of Jezebel and he ran for his life. The crazy thing is that Elijah’s fear and worry came immediately after he'd witnessed the LORD battle and defeat 850 of King Ahab’s false prophets at Mount Carmel! Elijah turned into a big chicken even after watching God do the miraculous.

The point in bringing Elijah into today's story is that God doesn’t expect us to be perfect in & of ourselves; He never did and never will. Elijah floundered and ran, but he never stopped loving God and never stopped seeing Him as God Almighty. Where Elijah failed epically was in focusing on his circumstances rather than on the character of God. Worry not only makes the small things big, but it simultaneously makes God small. Worry turns our circumstances into idolatry.

God does expect and require perfection - something we can never achieve ourselves as created, finite, deficient, sinful, egotistical, selfish beings. The miracle of grace is that God gives us His perfection in Jesus Christ when we (like Isaiah and Elijah) humble ourselves and see God as the LORD Almighty. It doesn't require perfection, it only requires humility to see God as... well, God.

It is only in seeing God as He truly is that we can then become privy to that divine oratory, the gentle zephyr wind; where we hear and confidently know how God desires to use us for His glory. It is only then that we can respond as Isaiah did, “Here I am. Send me.”

But sending is only the beginning - as Elijah discovered. The true beauty of life with God Almighty comes in continually hearing and experiencing His infinite and eternal love as the gentle zephyr wind - even when we fail epically; because restoration and redemption is what true love is all about.

Blessings,

-Kevin