VI. WHAT DOEST THOU HERE?


"And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, and he said unto
him, What doest thou here, Elijah?"--1 KINGS xix. 9.

There is a sound of rebuke in these words. They seem to imply that the
lonely mountain of Horeb was not the place in which God expected to find
such a servant as Elijah, and that there should be no indefinite
tarrying, no lingering without an aim in such a solitude.

As you read the familiar history you see how the record of the prophet's
retirement and his vision in Horeb is a record, first of all, of reaction
after fierce conflict; it exhibits the picture of a strong man in a
moment of weakness ready to give up the hopeless struggle, crying to God,
"It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life;" and then it shows us how
God dealt with him in that solitude; we hear the Divine voice pleading in
him again, bearing its Divine witness, putting its searching questions,
teaching him the universal lesson that despondency, weakness, solitude,
shrinking and retiring, if they have any place in our life, are only for
a time, and must not be allowed to rule in it.

That Divine vision which came to Elijah in the recesses of the mountain
is, in fact, the voice of God summoning him back to the duties that were
waiting for him, and the renewal of his strength for the new work he had
to do. And the interest of such a vision never fails, because, like
Elijah, all men come to times when they too lie under the juniper tree in
the wilderness longing to be set free from the burden which is too heavy