Gentle Breezes

I was thinking about the prophet Elijah during my morning meditation. He is one of my favorite Old Testament characters. You may be familiar with him from the Book of Kings. I’m not a scripture scholar but I think I got that right. Why was I thinking about him this morning? According to my wife there was quite a lot of thunder and lightning in the middle of the night as storms passed through our area. They woke her up and kept her awake. Apparently I slept through them like a baby as I wandered through the land of dreams. A couple of hours later, however, I felt the call of nature so I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. All was quiet and still. My bathroom window was open and I could hear the gentle sound of my wonderful wind chimes. They have a deep tone that sounds like temple bells. A light breeze caused them to make gentle sounds. What’s the point of this? In the story of Elijah, after he was run out of town by the false prophets of Baal, he was hiding on a mountain. There were storms with lightning and thunder and there were earthquakes. In all of that God was not present. Finally, there was a gentle breeze, much like the ones that blew through my wind chimes last night, and Elijah hid his face for God was present in the breeze. Much of our lives can seem like storms and earthquakes. We live in a noisy world. Our minds are over stimulated. It’s difficult for God to get through to us in all of these distractions. The experience of God is most likely to happen in the gentle breezes of life. If we are lost in the noise, we probably won’t notice the breeze. Wind chimes can remind us of God’s presence in our lives. Don’t get lost in the storms of life. Seek out the quiet moments and listen with the ear of your heart.