Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Cherith and Carmel

Most of us have watched footage of civilians being carved into soldiers. We have seen the early mornings, constant inspections, the drill Sergeants constantly giving orders. We watch the pushups and running, the climbing of incredible obstacles and then sliding down ropes. We ache as we see the recruits running through tires and bayoneting dummies. We hear of them going out into the wilderness with limited supplies as a team and living with what is given. Their excruciating pain and training forges them for the day when they will meet the enemy face-to-face.

The hour would come when Elijah would face King Ahab, the prophets of Baal, and all Israel on Mount Carmel. He would stand alone for God as he challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel in which the god who answered by fire would be hailed as the true God.

Before that time came, he would be stripped of himself living and waiting in the Cherith ravine. "Cherith was part of the training for Carmel," wrote Alexander Maclaren.

A.W. Pink said of Elijah—"The prophet needed further training in secret if he was to be personally fitted to speak again for God in public…The man whom the Lord uses has to be kept low; severe discipline has to be experienced by him…Three more years must be spent by the prophet in seclusion. How humbling! Alas, how little is man to be trusted; how little is he able to bear being placed in the place of honor! How quickly self rises to the surface, and the instrument is ready to believe he is something more than an instrument. How sadly easy it is make of the very service God entrusts us with a pedestal on which to display ourselves."

Many today pray for the miracles of Elijah, not realizing that to ask for them is to also ask for the trials of Elijah. Do those who pray understand that God will give them the discipline that made Elijah—the fiery furnace of testing and waiting? Perhaps it is wise to be careful of what one asks for.