THE CAVE EXPERIENCE
In the first book Kings 19 verse 3 and 4 it is written: “Elijah was afraid and arose and ran for his life, and he came to Beersheba which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there. But he himself traveled a day’s journey into the wilderness, and he came and sat down under a juniper tree and asked [God] that he might die. He said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
In the above passage we can see that a man named Elijah was scared. Elijah was a prophet of Israel. He was a very powerful man of God. God had done mighty miracles through him still he was afraid.
Just in the previous passage (1 Kings chapter 18 verse 36-39) we can read that: “At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet approached [the altar] and said, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (Jacob), let it be known today that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and that I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You have turned their hearts back [to You].” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood, and even the stones and the dust; it also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell face downward; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”
We read how powerfully God answered Elijah’s prayers and lifted him up in the whole land of Israel, but here when he gets a death threat from a queen, he gets scared, runs away and hides in a cave. Elijah was so scared that he hid himself in a cave. A once celebrated prophet of God is now living in a cave like a coward.
In our lives, many times we too go through such a cave experience like Elijah. Though like Elijah, we would have experienced and celebrated the miracles of God, we too go through extreme fear, rejection and loneliness.
Now as we read further down in the same chapter (1 Kings 19: 4-6) we can see that “There he came to a cave and spent the night in it; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah wanted to just die but here God had a real conversation with him. When Elijah was going through the most difficult time, when he was lonely, when he felt that he is at a dead end, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah to encourage, strengthen and comfort him. This is our God.
Personally, this has been my experience too. When I was going through this cave experience of loneliness, God was providing for all my daily needs, He was sustaining me just as He was doing for Elijah. It was during these trying times of my life that God’s Word came to me and comforted me at every step. God was just asking me to eat and drink and be still.
Remember that whenever you go through the cave of darkness, loneliness and rejection, God’s Word will surely come to us and comfort us.
– Going through the cave experience is like a larva who is trapped in a cocoon, it has no other option but to just wait until its time for the larva to turn into a beautiful butterfly. When things are beyond our control and when we go through a cocoon experience, we always have a choice, either we can choose to die in the cocoon trying/struggling to come out of it before its appointed time or we can choose to wait for the right time and transform into a beautiful butterfly. Praying and waiting for a breakthrough is a place of cocoon where the best option for us is to just wait for the right time.
Cave is a beautiful place because it always elevates us to a new level of relationship with God. Just as a larva receives the essential nutrition from the cocoon to become a butterfly, be assured that God will give you the strength to go through your cave.
The life of Elijah is from the Old Testament of the Bible, so how does it relate to us?
When we invited Jesus Christ into our lives and started walking with Him, we felt blessed and there were so many instances when we got instant answers to our prayers but slowly with the passing of time, we fall in our faith. Our focus changes from Christ to the material things of the world. Our faith tends to take a transition in such a way that our happiness gets dependent on the results of our faith rather than on the finished work of the cross itself.
When tough situation comes in our lives, we take that finished work of Christ for granted and fall in a selfish trap of using it for our own personal gain. But when we don’t see the things happening around us as we desire or plan we soon forsake our first love JESUS for that perishable thing.
If a mighty man of God like Elijah can fall in the trap of forsaking God, then it can happen to anyone of us. But as we can see that the Lord was faithful to Elijah, the same God is faithful for each one of us today.
God is so faithful and so loving that He gave His one and only son Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for our lives. All God has ever desired from us is our faith in HIM, rest anything we do is all vain. The worldly things are vain because God is able to take care of it all, just as He was able to provide Elijah with bread and water. God is our provider even when we become unfaithful, God will never leave us nor forsake us because He is faithful to fulfil all His promises which are yes and Amen in Jesus Christ.
At any point of our life, we need to remind ourselves of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. God wants us to be still and see His powerful deliverance. Jesus’ broken body and every drop of His blood shed on the cross is the price that God paid for each one of our lives, for our metamorphosis where He desires to transform our dark cave experience into a beautiful butterfly experience.
Just as a larva surrenders to the cocoon and stays still, trusting that the web will hold it and transform it, we too should be still and trust that God is always working even when we are unable to see things moving around us in our way. Remember that God is in the process of transforming us and turn our cave, our cocoon into a womb to nourish and flourish us with His Word which will strengthen as well as sustain us in through that period.