"Turbulence"
- Dr. Todd R. Wright
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Just turbulence? Tell that to anyone who has experienced it at 30,000 feet, when it felt like you were being shaken like a rag doll by forces outside your control; when you were thrown against your seat belt or your seatmate; when items from the overhead bin shook loose and cascaded down like a waterfall of coats and carry-on bags. Turbulence is terrifying!
1 Kings 19:1-16
June 22, 2025
Dr. Todd R. Wright
Prophet and pop star P!nk sings,
“You can't help when your stomach sinks. See your life happen in a flash.
In your head, it could be so real that you almost feel the crash.
The panic is temporary, but I'll be permanent.
So when it hits, don't forget, as scary as it gets,
it's just turbulence.”[2]
Just turbulence? Tell that to anyone who has experienced it at 30,000 feet, when it felt like you were being shaken like a rag doll by forces outside your control; when you were thrown against your seat belt or your seatmate; when items from the overhead bin shook loose and cascaded down like a waterfall of coats and carry-on bags. Turbulence is terrifying!
As our passage opens, Elijah was experiencing turbulence.
His story had started off so well. God had called him to be a prophet, fed him in the wilderness, and flooded him with power:
stop all rain for three years by his word power,
bring a dead boy back to life power,
speak truth to king Ahab power,
defeat the prophets of Baal in a winner-take-all cage match power!
He is on such a high that it is like his flight has pulled away from the gate ahead of schedule, the runway is clear, the engines growl smoothly, the plane hurdles down the tarmac, and lifts off.
As the poet says, in “High Flight,”
“I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
— and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of —
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence ...
and touched the face of God”[3]
And then, suddenly there is turbulence, and Elijah crashes back to earth.
All it takes is a threat from Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, to kill him just as he killed her prophets.
He spirals downward like a plane missing a wing.
He flees as far as he can. Beersheba is under Judah’s control, not hers. And then another day’s journey further into the wilderness, just to be safe, until he collapses under a solitary broom tree.
He asks for God to take his life, lies down, and falls into an exhausted sleep.
It is a stunning reversal, but not unique. Many have fallen from the heights to the depths.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s own ordeal stemmed from “a late-night telephone call during the Montgomery bus boycott. The voice on the other end threatened and insulted him, causing insomnia. He felt the temptation to step away from his leadership role, but feared appearing cowardly. Moving from the bedroom to the kitchen, he drank coffee and prayed.”[4]
Maybe you’ve experienced a similar season of doubt, of fear, of sleeplessness and loss of appetite. I know I have.
King writes that “the response to his prayer came in the form of a feeling of the Divine presence. A reassuring inner voice promised God’s support. [It was so powerful that] even after the bombing of his home shortly after the experience, he felt a sense of peace.”
For Elijah that sense of divine presence begins with an angel’s visit encouraging him to eat.
He ate and drank, but he is still physically and spiritually exhausted, so he slept again.
The angel came a second time and told him to eat, or the journey would be too much!
So he ate and drank again and went on that strength for 40 days to Mount Horeb.
Elsewhere, that mountain is called Sinai. It is where Moses encountered God.
It is as if Elijah is seeking his own face-to-face.
Martin Luther King says he sought God there in his kitchen with a cup of coffee in hand.
Maybe you have prayed or paced, protested or pled for mercy.
Maybe it was an all-night vigil or a restless seeking; maybe a confrontational lament or a quick plea thrown over the walls of heaven – whatever the form, you sought God, like the prophet.
We don’t know what Elijah said, if he said anything.
We do know that God asked him, “What are you doing here?”
Here: boldly, on the mountain of God, yet timidly sheltering in a cave.
Here: not in Israel where he had been commissioned to bring God’s word to the king.
Here: not in the wilderness outside Beersheba where he had fled from Jezebel.
Here: seeking God.
What are you doing here? Elijah answers God’s – whining about Israel’s unfaithfulness, and the danger of serving God, and his loneliness. God tells him to stand on the mountain before the Lord.
But Elijah stays in the cave.
The wind blows, the earth quakes, fire blazes – all traditional signs of God’s presence.
In a word, there is turbulence!
But God is not in any of those signs of power.
God is not in those manifestations of upheaval designed to make mortals feel small.
Instead, we are told, after all the sound and fury, there is the sound of silence.
And it is into that silence that Elijah steps, with face covered, to encounter God.
It is a remarkable moment!
Scott Hoezee writes, “[Notice] it is only when God enters the silence of Elijah’s broken heart and fractured soul that Elijah gets up. It’s when God enters the heavy silence — when God becomes the silence — [that the prophet begins] to believe that God understands him and wants to help him.”[5]
Hoezee continues, “Elijah doesn’t need the fire and the wind, the rattling and the roaring. He needs to know he’s loved. He needs to know he’s held by hands tender and sensitive enough to hold the broken pieces of his life and then gently put them back together with the glue of grace.”
And it is in that raw silence that the message of grace gets through.
It begs the question, do we spend enough time in the silence to hear God’s voice?
Some days God’s voice will be hard to hear over the clamor of the world.
Some days we will be too distracted or exhausted or frightened to listen for it.
“Some days [it] may be no more than a whisper in your ear, a tickle on the back of your neck, [or a feeling in your gut], but [God] will be with you.”[6]
Just like God was with Elijah. Just as Jesus promised his disciples. Just as P!nk gives voice to,
“Hold my hand, hold your breath and I'll find a place to land.
Where you're safe, never break, when the morning never ends.
When you say that you can't, I will watch you dance … through this turbulence.”[7]
It was enough for Elijah. May God’s presence in the silence be enough for you, too! Amen
[1] By Ally Barrett, see https://reverendally.org/art/
[3] From the poem by John Gillespie Magee, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/157986/high-flight-627d3cfb1e9b7
[4] Here and below from his sermon “Our God is Able,” in Strength to Love, pages 113-114
[5] Here and following from his reflections on the text for cepreaching.org, 6/19/22
[6] Ibid
[7] Again, see https://genius.com/P-nk-turbulence-lyrics
Комментарии