And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
“The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face …
The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came. …”
Character Check When I feel like throwing in the towel, what keeps me going?
In Business Terms Last spring, toward the end of the school year, I got a call on Sunday morning: “Dr. Willimon, there’s no electricity in the chapel this morning.”
“Has the choir gotten in?” I asked.
“I think so. I can hear people moving around, but it’s so dark I can’t see anyone.”
I hurried over to do what I could. We stuck lit candles all over the place. The organ wouldn’t work. The PA system was down. Nothing went right, and I ran around for two hours improvising and calming upset people. At ten minutes before the service, the lights came on, but I felt awful-unprepared, disheveled, angry. I staggered through the service, thinking to myself, I hate this place!
But as I was greeting people leaving the church, three undergraduate women I didn’t know came up and said, “Dr. Willimon, we’re all graduating this year, and we were just talking about how some of our best memories will be the services we’ve had here in the chapel. We just wanted to thank you.”
I said, “Did God send you here today?”
My reaction afterward was almost a sort of disgust. I thought, That’s typical of God: you get finally to the point that you’re ready to throw in the towel because it’s all so absurd, and then God sends you three girls with a message like that! So I decided to stick with the ministry another week.
—William Willimon
Something to Think About Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. – Louis Pasteur
