Unseen Answers

So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered… And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

I Kings 18:26, 29 NKJV

I wish I could have been at the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. The false prophets danced around the altar all day, desperately cutting themselves and begging their false god to pay attention to them. For the first few hours, there was probably a lot of tension in the air. But the people of Israel stopped paying attention as they realized nothing was going to happen.

But “nothing” is such a funny word. Even more than watching what was happening on the ground below… I wish I could have witnessed what was happening in the sky above. Every angel and demon within a thousand miles had to be gathered at the altar that day. The enemy was desperate to prove his power, and heaven’s armies were determined to keep that from happening.

The amount of spiritual warfare that went into making “nothing” happen that day is absolutely mind blowing. I wonder if Elijah could see the battle raging in the sky above, like Elisha did in 2 Kings 6: Those with us are more than those with them (v. 16-17). Hundreds of false prophets grew more and more agitated as Elijah stood alone by himself, not paying any attention to them.

He was too busy looking up.

How often do we wonder why “nothing” is happening in our prayer life? How many times are we disappointed when we don’t see any visible answers to our prayers? Maybe we have no idea how much spiritual effort is going into making “nothing” happen. Maybe instead of getting frustrated when we don’t see anything tangible happening around us, we need to have the same response as Elijah…

We need to look up.

Hannah