The village where Elijah had been living was on the Mediterranean coast, so I find it easy to imagine him walking the shoreline, allowing the onshore breeze to be refreshed. He listens to the rhythm of the waves and the squawking seagulls, and opens his heart to receive the moment. Then, hearing something else, he pauses, and shading his eyes from the glare of the sun’s bright reflection glancing off the ripples that stretch to the distant horizon, he looks and he listens. And now, after many days, the word of Yehovah comes to him–again.
Before we have finished reading the story of Elijah, we will have learned more about the mysterious Word of Yehovah, how it came to Israel’s prophets, how it empowered them to obey it, and then how we can condition ourselves to become sensitive enough to the voice of God when he speaks his word to us.