What Are We Doing Here?

1 Kings 19: 1-15a

Key verse
Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19: 13b, CEB)

I think many of us have a list of questions for God when we finally come face-to-face with our maker in eternal glory. I have serious personal questions, mostly that follow into the “why” category of questions. I also have questions like, “What in the world were you thinking, God, when you made the platypus?” “Why did you make dogs with such short life spans?” “What was the inspiration for fireflies?” What’s some of the questions you have for God?

We have questions for God, but has it ever occurred to you that God has questions for us as well. I’m sure that God looks at some of our life choices and wants to ask us, “What were you thinking?” In today’s scripture lesson, God has a question for the prophet Elijah, and that question is, “What are you doing here?” Elijah had just about run out of steam as a prophet. He had done what God had asked him. He had spoken out against and eliminated the prophets of Ba’al. And as prophets tend to do, he had ticked off the powerful, this time Jezebel. Jezebel has ordered the death of Elijah so he’s on the run, he’s scared, and he’s ready to give up. He’s waiting to hear from God. So God sends an angel to minister to him…to feed him, to give him water, and to give him rest. Scripture tells us he was able to rest 40 days. After 40 days, the word of the Lord came to him and asked him, not once but twice, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

If God asks you that question, how would you respond? I think that’s an excellent question to ask ourselves. In the Ignatian Examen, we are encouraged to review our day, including what we said and what we did, and then ask ourselves, “Were you drawing closer to God, or moving further away?” The last step in the Examen is to look toward tomorrow, asking yourself, “How might I collaborate more effectively with God’s plan in specific ways?”

God’s question to Elijah is a question for us all, “What are we doing here?” We can go a little bit further and ask whether what we are doing is bringing us closer to God or moving us away. And to go even further, we can ask what we can do to collaborate more effectively with God’s plan for us and the world.

Prayer
Dear God, you provide all that we need for renewal and give us strengths to carry on. Give us a contemplative and reflective mind to examine if what we do and say are in your will. Empower us to move closer to you in all that we do and say. Amen.

Rev. Dana Ezell