Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

It’s not too hard to imagine the disappointment! There had been the account of a powerful God who could totally burn up a sacrifice, even one that had been drenched in water. And the priest, this guy Elijah, had simply called on God and God did it, big time! But instead of another big and impressive illustration of the power of God, Naaman was told to just go and bathe in the river Jordan. Naaman was actually more than disappointed that the prophet in this situation didn’t dramatically wave his hands to heal him. Go and bathe in the muddy Jordan, yeah right! There were better rivers back home. Not only didn’t he go bathe in the river, he went home in a rage! In my last post, I wrote about that dramatic demonstration of God’s power as shown by burning up the sacrifice and the altar but I also cautioned us that such does not happen as regularly as people might want. In fact, I don’t think it has happened in the same way since! But what normally does happen is this: God speaks, God hears ...

Talk about feeling insignificant, unimportant and totally ignored! · There was no voice; · No one answered; · No one paid attention. If any should have received a voice response and an answer and been paid attention to, they were it! They were, all 450 of them, prophets of a “god” named Baal. In fact, they had been so intent on getting a response, that they called on their “god” all day and danced frantically around the altar. And when they received no response, they doubled down on their efforts by cutting themselves so that their blood flowed as a sign of their sincerity and devotion. Yet still, there was no voice, no one answered and no one paid attention. Enter Elijah, the prophet of God. He was just one against 450! He had given the prophets of Baal the first shot at having their “god” consume, by fire, a bull offering to demonstrate who the real God was. For the prophets of Baal, their efforts went nowhere! So it was Elijah’s turn to call on his God. But, to make it even more obv...