I always thought of God as the God of big things: nations and armies; earthquakes, floods and other disasters. After all, he is infinite and all-powerful! I've only gradually come to realise that he is a God of small things too.

Of course, it should have been obvious: a quick look at a flower or an insect shows such amazing design and complexity that it is obvious that the creator took pains with even the smallest of details in his work.

But I have always seen his hand in the big things. Looking through history, the things he has done for us as his nation have always been big things: the plagues in Egypt, dividing the Red Sea and the Jordan, everything that happened at Mount Sinai, conquering the nations of Canaan – the list never ends. And that’s not counting all that he has done to try to keep the nation on track, worshipping him and him only!

To this day, I'm not sure whether the plan was my own idea or given by God. From the fact that it failed, I have often concluded that I must have been mistaken in thinking God put the idea into my head, but when I think back on all the encouragement God has given his people in the past to make the same choice, only to have them turn away so often, I just don’t know. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Wherever the idea originated, I began praying for a drought, to get the people's attention so that they would turn back to God, convinced of his power shown by first stopping the rain and then sending it again. Then one day, God told me to go to King Ahab and warn him that there would be no dew or rain for some unstated number of years – in fact, until I said so.

Not a popular message, as you can imagine!

That was the first occasion on which I had to run for my life, and God directed me to a brook and made sure I was fed (in an obviously miraculous way[1]) until it dried up. A sign that he cared? I should have taken it that way, but I considered that it was just God protecting his prophet so that I could do the job he had for me, rather than thinking that he was taking care of me as a person. Even when he sent me to the widow, looked after our food supply and raised her son to life again, I still didn't see God's loving care in our individual lives. A lifelong mindset is hard to change.

The famine made things hard for everyone, even those being specifically cared for by God, like I and my adopted family were. Soon, food was running short for both people and livestock, and so was water in many places. It was a relief when God finally spoke to me again and told me to go to Ahab because rain was coming. But even through the worst of the famine, I clung to the hope that this proof of God’s control over the weather, and the further signs he would be showing before sending rain, would be enough to bring the people back to him. So, it was with a heart full of hope that I returned to Israel.

I found Ahab out in the countryside – safely away from Queen Jezebel – and told him to arrange for all the people to gather on Mount Carmel on a given day, with the prophets of Baal and Asherah there as well. It was time for a showdown.

There was plenty of time for thought and prayer in those days of waiting as the messengers went all over the land to call the people to Mount Carmel, but I never really thought that the people could turn away from God once the difference between the true God and the Baals had been shown as plainly as I knew it would be.

At last the day came. A huge crowd met on Mount Carmel, forming a big circle in a bit of a natural amphitheatre, with the prophets in the middle. All of the prophets: eight hundred and fifty prophets of false gods, and one prophet of the true God. It was a lonely position to be in, but knowing that an all-powerful God was at my side was comforting. Although it was only me against 850 others, I was the one who made the rules for the contest and nobody argued. (Incidentally, King Ahab’s attitude toward prophets of God has always puzzled me. The woman he married kills them whenever she gets the chance, but he himself seems happy to listen and even respond when given a message from Yahweh – at least until Jezebel steps in. A weak man, probably, with some respect for God, but more for his wife.) Regardless, in this case, what I said went. Two bulls were to be brought, one for them and one for me. Each side would build an altar, and whichever god sent fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifice would be acknowledged as the true God. I emphasised that the Israelites needed to make a decision which god to follow, and stick to it.

As there were so many more of them, I directed them to go first. They slaughtered their bull and placed it with some wood on the altar they had built, and then they started calling on Baal. They continued to call on him for hours, dancing around his altar. We had started early in the morning, but by noon they had still had no response. No surprise, of course. In fact, the whole thing struck me as rather funny, so I started teasing them: "Maybe he can't hear you because he's asleep! Or maybe he's going to the toilet..." Then they got more desperate, and the blood flowed from the cuts they made in their bodies in a frantic attempt to get their god's attention.

They kept limping around the altar, raving to their god, until the time of the evening sacrifice. Then I called an end to it. It was time to show the power of a real God. Turning away from the sorry-looking false prophets, I called the people to me and gathered twelve stones to repair God's altar. As they watched, I dug a trench around the base of the altar, then placed the wood on the altar and the bull on top. I wanted to show that nothing could stop God’s work, so I got four men to fill four jars with water, and empty them over the altar; once, twice, three times, until the wood was soaked and the trench full. Although I had announced that God would be sending rain, water would remain a precious commodity until he had done so, so I don’t know what the people thought about this ‘wasting’ of water. But it made my point: it had to be obvious to everyone that there was no way that anything on that altar could catch fire!

Once that was done, I blocked out the crowds that surrounded me and focussed only on God as I prayed aloud, "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back."

Well, the next instant there was the most dramatic and sudden response that I've ever had to a prayer – and one that confirmed my impression of God as a God of big things. Fire fell from heaven and completely consumed the bull, but it didn't stop there. It also consumed the wood, the stones, all that water, and even the surrounding dust! There was no way that anyone could doubt God's power, or explain away the miracle. And they didn't try. Instead, they all cried, "The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God." It had worked! The people were finally acknowledging Yahweh our God as the one true God.

Striking while the iron was hot, I ordered that all of the prophets of Baal and Asherah should be taken down to the brook Kishon and executed. Everyone joined in enthusiastically, and I felt that everything was going as I had hoped. Now for the last phase, I thought. I advised Ahab to have his meal while he could, and then headed up to the very top of the mountain to pray for rain.

Kneeling on the summit, I begged God to send the rain for which the land had been thirsting for so long. Sending my servant to look out to sea and scan the horizon for clouds, I continued to pray. As he returned again and again without news, I prayed still more fervently, until finally, the seventh time, he reported a cloud on the horizon, only the size of a man's hand. Knowing that my prayer was answered, I sent him again to Ahab, this time to warn the king to leave the mountain before the rain stopped him. I myself stood and watched the sky rapidly grow black with clouds – a beautiful sight after so long without rain.

 

 

 

 

[1] Well, have you ever had a large bird land right in front of you and stalk right up to you, doing its best to give you a small loaf of bread it’s been carrying in its beak? My eyes nearly popped out of my head the first time it happened, even though God had warned me that he had told the ravens to feed me. I don’t know where they got the food since they couldn’t tell me! – but although I found it off-putting at first, eating something that had been in a bird’s beak, we grew quite friendly over time. Soon, they would land on my hand and then hop to my knee, where they sat and let me pat them while I ate the bread and meat they brought – feeding them bits as I went, as payment. I was actually sorry to leave them when God sent me to Zarephath.