The healing processes that have to take place in us

Let's go to the word of the Lord, I want to share with you this morning, continuing with our topic on abundant lives, happy lives, healthy lives, healthy lives, especially the healing processes that have to take place in us. And in the future I want to be even more specific about different topics like depression, anxiety, mind tethers, all these kinds of things. It's going to be a long series, but through all of those topics we're actually dealing a lot with scripture and we're at the very center, at the very heart of the Christian life.

But again, always staying focused on God's call to be healthy people, healthy people, in the midst of a hostile world that often militates against our healing and that we have to deal with the struggles, the difficulties, the problems. , the pains of life, illnesses, economic reversals, but despite all of this, as Paul says, "in all these things -not outside of them, but in them- we are more than conquerors."

And Pablo, by the way, was a man who knew a lot about affliction, persecution, pain, internal and personal afflictions, loneliness, criticism from others, lashes, physical persecution, including prisons. But within that we have his wonderful epistle to the Philippians, which is an epistle that overflows with joy and sufficiency in the Lord, and a call to live lives... rejoice, again, I say rejoice, says the Apostle Paul while he is in jail .

So, the Bible calls us to that duality, to live in that tension between God's benevolent purpose that we be happy and that we recover from all loss, from all affliction, and also the fact that we are going to go through those times. trial and difficulties.

I have told them that we are at this time talking about pain and suffering and adversity, that there is something healthy in simply getting used to the idea that life is hard and difficult and that difficult times are coming into our lives. , and that the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not that we do not go through tribulation and difficulties, but how we go through them, how we process them, how we use them rather to grow and be more like Christ. And as we change our perspective from victims to victors it changes the way we experience our trials and the effect they have on us.

And that is why I believe a lot in what I call normalizing pain and normalizing suffering. Understand that this is part of this fallen world that we inhabit and that God is in the process of regenerating and transforming and that one day it will be changed "by new heavens and a new earth," says the word of the Lord.

But while we are in this world that has already been pierced by sin, this world, even if it wants to, cannot give us total happiness. And in us understand that, comprehend it, accept it and believe that in the midst of that we have tools and instruments that God provides us and his word, to be victorious, in that there is peace and there is trust in the Lord, there is emotional health. I have even said that many times suffering is a surgical instrument, so to speak, used by God to paradoxically lead us to happiness.

Many times when we go through trials and tribulations if we handle them correctly, and we come out of them having used Biblical resources and principles, we come out lighter and more like Christ and more capable of being happy then. Some of the happiest people that I know in life are people who have gone through great tribulations, elderly people especially that you see them with that peace, that tranquility and it's because now when you talk to them, wow! You see when they were young they went through many trials and tribulations, but when they began to see the world through the lens of Christ, they can have peace, they can have happiness.

Pain is one of the things that relieves us the most. You will remember that last Sunday we talked, especially in the 12 o'clock sermon, which was practically different but the same topic. If you want to complement what you heard in the morning, I stopped at the passage from Hebrews, chapter 12, where he talks about that we get rid of all weight and sin that plagued us, as it surrounds us, and run lightly or lightly run the race of faith.

And I maintain that past pain and trial, and viewed and interpreted through the lens of Scripture and using Biblical tools, lightens us and makes us more capable of happiness in the future. But we have to see it that way, we have to see pain not as something that has been imposed on us and that is an indication of God's indifference or God's hostility or God's punishment, or my lack of faith or my sinfulness. When we stop seeing it that way, and we begin to see it as God having a purpose in allowing it or bringing it into my life, then that transforms the experience and then it allows me to see it as something redemptive and surgical and even therapeutic, that works for me. to do better. And then it no longer has that harmful effect that pain often has, the toxic effect that pain has on our lives.

Sometimes when we can see that our children are going through problems and difficulties and we can discern the hand of God working in them, and we can encourage ourselves to believe that God has a purpose in that pain they are going through and pray with them, then we can stop to agonize so much for them and to know that in a race, God has to take them as well as he took us and that God is going to fulfill his purpose in them too.

That is why I have said that I want to stop for a while on this aspect of suffering and I am going to spend a couple of more sermons in that area. Today I precisely want to continue and I want to study a case, a case study, a case of a specific person in Scripture who went through a moment of terrible crisis in his life and one could almost say that it was like a ministerial failure in his life and that he did something that would not be expected from such a great man of God as he was.

But that God had a purpose in that dark and terrible experience that this man went through, this servant of God. And that this helps us to see how God can use times of trial and difficulty in our life, even in the best cases to fulfill an effect, a purpose that he has through that experience.

And I am referring specifically to a great man of God in the Old Testament named Elijah. Few men of more power than Elijah, and of a more stellar career in Scripture than the prophet Elijah, a man who performed mighty miracles used by God in terrible times in Israel's history. Yet he was a man with a nervous system like ours, with emotions like ours, with temperamental and character flaws like ours, who had his own spiritual journey and he had to follow. He was not a plaster saint nor was he a super man, he was a man like any of us.

By the way, the writer James in James 5:17 says that Elijah was a man subject to passions similar to ours. Passions means emotions, today we would say in psychological language. Elijah was a man subject to emotions similar to ours. Why does Santiago say that? because I think he is remembering when he writes that, the passage that I am going to read, I am not going to read but I am going to discuss it because it is long, in First Kings, chapter 19. Because there we see in that recorded passage that man of emotions very similar to ours.

Rarely can we enter into the psychology of a servant of God as we do in that passage from Elijah in the desert. And yet, Santiago says that despite being a man with us, he prayed fervently for it not to rain and it did not rain on the earth for three years and 6 months. Do you know that God can use us even though we are imperfect and very human? Sometimes we deify, we want to deify the servants and servants of God but they are people like any other character, with all the passions, attractions, sins, temptations, defects, fears and deformations that any other human being. And God nevertheless uses them.

We have this treasure, he says, in clay vessels so that the glory belongs to God and not to us. That is, God used him. James, by the way, is saying, look, pray, believe God that God can do great things through you, even though you feel like you have a lot of growing to do, because here is Elijah who was a man like you and yet God heard your prayer so much that nature itself worked and prayed and it stopped raining for 3 years, and prayed again and the sky gave rain and the earth produced its fruit. There is hope there for all of us.

Now, let's remember the passage from First Kings, chapter 19, maybe you can read it little by little while you listen carefully, or maybe many of you will remember it. Elijah had a great, great victory in his ministerial career when he defeated hundreds of false prophets of Baal, a terrible god, who was being worshiped by the Israelites, led by their kings, Jezebel and Ahab, a practically demon-possessed people.

We remember that great story where Elijah has that confrontation with the prophets and makes them pray to see if the god Baal can make it rain in Israel. They fail after hours of doing all their cuteness and all their things, and then Elijah comes and builds an altar of stones and wood and pours water on it to wet all the stones and all the wood so that it is evident that this is not a work of magic, a cheap magician's trick. And then he prays a very simple prayer asking God to call fire down from heaven and that's how it actually happens.

And so much fire falls that it consumes the firewood, the water, which ran even through some ditches and it is clear and evident to all the people of Israel, who witnessed this, that God is the true God, Jehovah is the God of Israel. And it changes the destiny, at least for a moment, for a time, of Israel. It shows them that Jehovah is the true God.

Imagine after a victory as great as that, one would think that Elijah would never doubt the power of God that is in his favor, absolutely no one would fear him. By the way, after that victory the Bible says that Elijah took all those false prophets, a mystery, and slaughtered all those 500 demon-possessed prophets. Don't go setting an example of that with your children, please, or something like that. That is a very sui generis case. Elijah executed those hundreds of prophets. I don't know if he did it personally, as it is suggested to us that he slit their throats, but I suspect that he must have had help because he will have tired after a while.

The fact is that the image is terrible. This man, imagine the character and mettle it takes for you to witness and participate in or order or help slaughter hundreds of men. What temper, what courage, what psychological strength is required.

But one would think that after such a great victory, this strong man, as tough as Elijah was, would fear absolutely nothing. What's going on? That after Elijah does this we are told here in First Kings, chapter 19, that Jezebel, this demon-possessed queen, sends a letter to Elijah telling him that "just as you did to my prophets, so I will do to you." .” Let me grab you, in good Dominican, he told her.

And the Bible says that Elijah became afraid, a very strong panic overcame him and he felt lonely, he felt desperate, he felt alone. Imagine that the CIA and the secret service and the FBI are after you to take your life. Where do you go? Elijah felt completely helpless.

Stop for a moment, because I think that sometimes it's important… I think sometimes that God even cooperates and allows us to fall into certain emotional states in our life because he has a purpose in it.

I also think of the panic that overtook Peter when this humble servant, when they were questioning Jesus in the courtyard of Caiaphas, told him, "You are one of those who walks with Jesus, you are also part of his..." And Peter a fear came over him. Peter was so sure of himself and a strong and courageous man, and yet like a terror came over him and he denied that he belonged to Jesus, three times, the last time cursing so they would believe him, "I don't go around with that man." …" or whatever.

But the Lord had a purpose in that panic, because Jesus had predicted to him, "Peter, you are not only going to deny me once, but you are going to deny me three times." Because of the pride that Pedro had in him, he believed, everyone else is going to deny you, but I will never leave you. I am special. And the Lord wanted to hit that self-sufficiency that was in Peter, that pride, because he wanted to form a man who would be pastoral, a servant who would direct his church when he was not on earth.

Because that's what happens, that God sometimes allows trials and difficulties to come into our lives because he has a purpose to form us. When you enter the Gospel remember that you do not enter just to receive, you enter to give. right yes? You enter to be a blessing, you enter to be treated, so that God can use you for others. And how is God going to take you from your deformed state in which you find yourself to a state where you have word of wisdom and experience and knowledge of the word and how God works, except putting you in processes that teach you who God is and that bleed you to death? and take out a lot of that bad blood that is in you and make you a true servant, servant of God.

Pain is one of the most instructive things in all human experience. And God uses it to break us, but to prepare us and bless us in the end.

Elijah I think he fell into this panic but I believe that God was cooperating with that emotional state of fear as rare for a man like him. Because I think that also… I have tried many times to get into the psychology of Elias and understand this man. I love Elias for many different reasons and I have always said that in ministry our strengths are also our weaknesses. The things that make a man or a woman strong often also have a dark side. They are like the two sides of a coin.

So, Elijah… God used Elijah and chose him in part because his emotional constitution was fit to fight in a terrible time of persecution and where the very government of Israel was against the values of the Kingdom of God and was sworn to undermine the values of the Kingdom of God. values of the Kingdom of God. And these people who were in power were violent and criminal and a man of equal strength and physical courage was required to be able to counteract that terrible power that was in control of the people of Israel. And Elijah was that man.

If you read the passages where the personality of Elias is photographed, you see a man who was violent, with the violence of a person who does not eat stories, as we say. He was an aggressive man in spirit, he was a man with clear convictions, he was a man who could rebuke and attack and confront these powerful gods, demons that they were, and these two kings. It dressed in animal skin, ate insects, and ate wild food, insects, and honey. And this man lived as a loner.

It was that kind of person who came to a village and everyone trembled because they didn't know what was going to come out of it. He was one of those stereotypical Old Testament prophets. Her psychology God needed her. Because God works through our natural abilities to use us in different aspects of life. And he places his servants in different life situations, according to what he has been forming in them or the natural aptitudes they have.

That is why he chose, for example, Paul to do what he did, because in Paul there was a sediment of capacities that God could use to advance the Gospel in that key time of the Greco-Roman world and of cities and all this type of thing, It is long to explain, but God chooses people that he has even been preparing beforehand, like Joseph, Moses, others like that. God works through many years of experience to use us and position us.

Those people that you see who want… enter the Gospel and the next day they already want to be pastors, preachers, evangelists. Well, God can use them but normally God takes time to prepare a saint, I say.

So, Elias... that aggressive, militant, violent, physically strong, physically courageous constitution, but what happens with a person like that? Such a person, who can be used by God for certain purposes, also has its negative side. It can be a person that if someone comes with a need, I feel afraid, I'm having nightmares, “What? Boy, go away, pray, fast for three days and stop fooling around and move on, God is with you. A heart that has Christ cannot be sad.”

Such a prophetic, violent person may not be very sensitive in the area of counseling, mercy, compassion, love, tenderness, the ability to disciple someone. Everything is black and white, because they are like that, black and white. I also think their violent character makes them fragile. Our masculinity, men, many times not treated by God if it does not have a dose of femininity in it makes us sometimes sterile and brittle. A man needs the feminine flexibility within him and she needs the masculine firmness, because we are complementary in that sense, in order to be flexible.

There are males that are so male that they are good for nothing except to be like pimp horses, which are simply made to be studs, to reproduce. But flexibility, tenderness, is needed to be able to be used by God in other ways. And the person as strong as Elijah has his weak side as well. Psychologically he is also fragile and easily frustrated. He doesn't have the analytical skills and the complexity and the psychological nuance to deal with frustrating and helpless situations, because he's used to being in control, and many more things that we could say about the psychology of Elias.

His strong side, which enabled him to do many terrible things at that time, also made him weak in other areas. And I think that's partly why when he finds himself in this situation as with a closed path, and this woman who wants to kill him, so powerful, collapses and says that when he listened to what Jezebel told him, she went through the desert, 19 :4, first leave your servant there.

One of the things you do that you should never do when you are in crisis and difficulty is to isolate yourself and that is usually what you want to do. Don't talk to me, don't call me, go into the bedroom, lower the curtain, buy some dark extras, get into bed, find a thick fleece and cover your head and put on the most dismal music you can get on the radio and get depressed and rejoice in their terrible situation.

The first thing Elías does is leaves his servant. As you are in tribulation, anguish, difficulty, look for people to pray with you, talk, vent to people who are capable of helping you. Seek company, that's why we have to be compassionate with each other and if you see someone who is sad, who is isolating, do everything possible with respect to give them love and company.

Then he says that he left his servant, he withdrew from him and he says that he went through the desert, because he was a man of deserts. He liked solitude, the wild field, the jungle, the silence. He went into the desert alone and he went deep one day on the road and says:

“…and he came and sat under a tree, a juniper, and wishing to die – that is one of the most tragic words in all of Scripture for a man as powerful as this – wishing to die…”

That is why Santiago says, he was a man of passions similar to ours, because some of us have had times in our life that we have wanted to die, we have gone through tribulations and difficulties and perhaps we have wished, “Lord, take my life. ”

“…Wishing to die, he said, “Enough already, O Jehovah, take my life for I am no better than my parents.”

In other words, I can't take it anymore, I'm not a super man, kill me. If he hadn't been God fearing, he might have thought, I'm going to take two or three or four pills and kill myself. But he certainly had a depression. I don't have time to develop it, but Elías gives all the signs and all the clinical indications of chronic depression, all of them. Many psychologists and psychiatrists even say that after a great triumph, many times expect a great depression because that is how the springs of human psychology are. After that great triumph that he had, he entered this stage of terrible depression.

But I believe that God had a purpose in that tragedy. Remember that what I want to teach you is how God uses pain and suffering, suffering, failures, life crises and how he is often working in the midst of that situation to take us to another level of knowledge of him and of emotional health, and a different perspective on life.

So, God was working here. It seems that it is the devil and that it is this evil woman who is in control but God is using her, because God even uses the devil and demons to bless us, brothers. The devil has to do what God tells him to do, he cannot penetrate beyond where God gives him freedom in our lives.

So God allowed this to happen for a purpose that He has with this man. He wants to form a man and take Elijah to another level of spiritual capacity and personal healing. Because it is that God does not want to simply take advantage of us. I have learned that, that God is not there like he takes you with a thing of cane, a cane stick and squeezes you and when he can no longer get you out he throws you away, and looks for another cane to squeeze it too. Rather, God likes to invest in his servants and God not only wants to take advantage of us, but God also wants to bless us and strengthen us and build us up and teach us and train us for the next stage. And God wants us to be happy too, even as we serve him.

This idea that those of us who serve the Lord have to sacrifice our children, our marriage, our wife, and we have to continually suffer until the Lord takes us out of this cruel world, because otherwise we are not good servants, that is a lie. of the devil God wants us to be happy even while we serve him, although many times we can go through tribulation.

So, God wanted to take this man to another level and allows him to enter this crisis because it is a kind of therapy that he wants to give Elijah. I call this passage God's psychotherapy, how God uses painful experiences to treat us and work on our weaknesses.

Elias reaches a point of total insufficiency. This man who is so strong, so sure of himself, so sufficient, so physically courageous finds that all of that has left him right now and he feels powerless, he feels persecuted, he feels alone, needy, depressed, sad.

And brothers, many times I tell you, for many of us that low point is one of the best points of our entire life, because there we sweat many of the impurities that are in us. There we are confronted with our own mortality and with our own insufficiency and that is very healthy, to know on which foot you are limping and how much you need God and your loved ones around you.

This man needed all of that in order to truly be a servant used by God. And God wanted to enrich him, God wanted him to have peace, to have joy, to also rest because everything for Elijah was ministry, struggle, fight, conflict with people who did not love the Kingdom of God and he had created this image that if I don't do things, no one is going to do them. If I'm not here to represent the Kingdom of God and the whole world, all these scoundrels have gone to Baal and I'm the only one who is serving the Lord and if I don't fight, this is going to go to hell, all.

He had this idea of his too… because it came from his commitment and his sense of integrity, when he gave it, he gave it his all and if everyone else didn't give their all like him, then they weren't giving anything. And God wanted to form and God wanted to work on this man, I believe, bless him and show him an aspect of God that I believe Elijah did not know, because the God that he had known was always a type of God that we are going to see in a moment. moment.

So, this is what is also called in psychology and in teaching, an objective lesson, an object lesson, where God sometimes puts us like in psychodramas, that we live an experience where we are the actors and other people are actors, in a drama that we are living in order to interpret it and to learn things in the experience itself. From living it, we are learning lessons and they are being inscribed on us as with a knife and they are being recorded and sculpted in our very psyche for which we are living with the fire of the test, welding it to our psyche.

I believe that God is elaborating a whole drama in which Elijah is the main actor and God is also the reader and the producer and the composer of that drama. And one of the characters is Jezebel and one of the characters is Elijah, and another of the characters is also the people of Israel and all this. Say what:

"... throwing himself under the tree he fell asleep..."

Elías was tired, psychologically exhausted. Imagine after going through the experience that this man went through, of those baals and all these horrible and terrible characters, having killed 500 men and perhaps the entire burden of the ministry, he desperately needed a sabbatical, he needed a vacation. And I believe that if he had not gone through this test, he would not go on vacation, because there is so much to do, so much work. You know that sometimes God puts us on forced vacations. If you don't take care of yourself and don't attend to yourself, you're going to fall into an emotional or physical collapse and then you're going to have to do it in a hospital bed, you're going to spend your vacations there with syringes stuck everywhere you want, you're going to have a nervous breakdown or he's going to go off with the secretary or whatever.

If you don't take care of yourself emotionally, spiritually, physically, your system is going to retaliate and you're going to have problems. Take care of yourself for the love of your children, mothers, that sometimes we want them to have to kill themselves and everything and they can't have… no, take time, take off your shoes and when the husband arrives let him see you watching television or listening to his music. "And where is the food?" “Oh, it's in the pantry, there's a can of soup, help yourself. Today the kitchen is closed. Go there and you will see a sign, 'kitchen closed' it says.”

You have to take time, brothers, not everything is to work and suffer. God sometimes wants us to take a vacation and God sometimes wants to serve us even, my brothers, God sometimes wants to serve us. And that's what happened here because God gave him a dream... This man was emotionally exhausted, he fell asleep and look what a beautiful story, when Elijah woke up there was an angel next to him who touched him and said, "Get up, eat."

I believe that the words that angel said were very tender words. It wasn't a, “Get up, eat!” No, it was “get up, eat.” It was like a few words of affirmation for this man and the Lord himself had baked him a cake on the coals. Says:

“…then he looked and here at his head, a cake baked on the embers and a pot of water…”

By the way, it wasn't a ham full of fat, it was cake. I believe that God is vegetarian. Elijah would have said, "Sir, thank you, but I would have liked a chicken thigh as well."

No, but what he gave her was a cake and a pot of water, bread and water. But I'm sure that bread tasted like heaven. And it had some vitamins and nutrients, because God is cheap, he doesn't need meat, the toast had all the nutrients he needed.

I believe that in that act, it is an act of tenderness from God. I imagine this man woke up exhausted and still felt the torpor of that deep sleep of his fatigue, which he was allowing himself to experience for the first time, and there is the Lord with a little meal, eat, feed yourself. And what happened? He says he fell asleep again. This man was exhausted, he was burned and God was allowing him to sleep and be...

It is that he is a very natural God in a sense and very wise. This man needed food and sleep and tenderness and to feel the care of God because he did not allow himself to even feel the tenderness of his Father. I think he was a very self-sufficient man, if he needed something he would kill a rabbit in the jungle and eat it. And he wasn't used to being served and a lot of us are like that. I tell the truth, sometimes it's hard for me to accept things and do favors for me.

One gets used to being enough and God wanted this man... many times we need someone to care for us, bless us, pray for us, minister to us too. And this man was not used to that and neither for him God was the God of judgment and power and punishment and resistance, and violence if necessary, but that other tender and loving and maternal God, feminine... Elijah had testosterone that even came out of his ears, he was a man, a macho man in every sense and God used him for that.

But then again, I needed the other side, the feminine side. Look, for me I believe that this is a drama where God wants to show Elijah the feminine side of God, in quotes, it is not that God is a man and a woman, but there is a side that we... the woman exemplifies in her constitution and the man... and these two energies that we call masculine and feminine, it is because they are in God, because God is a legislator and is just and is truth and is structure, but also God is mercy, compassion, love, the masculine and feminine side complemented in a Only be.

And when the man and the woman in marriage and come together physically they are as if exemplifying the complexity and balance of God himself. His strong masculine side and his strong feminine side but in the compassionate and tender sense, the two things united there. And we have to exemplify in our own psyche, in our own temperament those two sides, the tender side and the legislator side, the truth and justice side and the compassion, mercy and patience side. It has to be within us, we have to look for that side of ourselves, both of us. The woman has to be strong and confident, firm and clear, and the man has to be compassionate, tender, loving and patient and has to have the other side as well.

Elijah, I believe that he had only known that side of God of judgment, and of truth, and God wanted to show him the other side. I know that we have spent time but there is so much here. We have taken a lot of time for many things but… give me a couple more minutes.

I believe that in all this of him sleeping and being served and that he feels the object of God's care, there is a deal that God is having with this man, because it is like God put him in a time of training to get more out of him. advantage. God wanted to bless this man and not just take advantage of him. It had already been very helpful in a very big way, now I wanted to bless him and I wanted to minister to him like Jesus who when he sent the 70 to minister, later told them, "Now come to a separate place and we are going to have a vacation." Because the Lord likes, when after work there is rest time and also from him how to give us feedback, and to debrief us, and that we talk about the experiences we have had and that we share with him the moments of life and that we have time also fellowship with God. It is not only service and work, brothers. We must find time in which we know God.

God loves Marta but he also loves Mary. The Bible is full of these beings, they are very definite. Marta, all production, integrity, service, tenacity; Tender, soft Mary, sitting at Jesus' feet drinking in every word with a look of adoration in her eyes. But without the Martas the church is not going anywhere, but neither is it without the Marías. Martha and Mary are needed within each one of us.

And God wanted a psychological healing for Elijah. I believe that this text for me is extremely profound in that sense. For me, the most instructive thing about this text is that aspect, it is the teaching, the insight, the psychological, emotional, spiritual intuition that it gives us about the Christian life, the service of whatever our condition, mothers, husbands, wives, workers. , servants. God wants to dig deeper cisterns within us so that more of his water and his depth and his wisdom can fit within us and we are more able to bless others and bless ourselves and then be happy.

He says that he ate, drank and went back to sleep and the angel of Jehovah returned and touched him, "Get up and eat, because you have a long way to go." And Elijah eats again, gets stronger, and then God sends him on a journey.

I believe that all this experience is a physical journey in the desert, but it is a psychological journey within himself, it is an eminently profound journey of man entering his own psyche and getting to know himself better, because God's journeys are journeys both physical and internal travel. The Bible is full of journeys: Abraham, the people in the desert of Israel, this journey of Elijah, many journeys, Jesus was continually traveling. And those trips teach many things, God dealing with us, taking us on psychological, existential journeys at the same time that they are physical journeys.

Then he says, "Eat, drink, because you have a long way to go." He says, "...he walked 40 days and 40 nights..." that 40 is like sufficiency, it was something full, he had 40 days fasting and eating simple food in solitude, in silence, walking through the desert and I believe that God was speaking to him and preparing him for a peak experience so that he would be able to understand everything and receive all the benefit that God wanted to give him from that experience.

Then God subjects him to another very symbolic lesson where he says that he went into a cave. Again, the idea of a cave is the place where we ourselves, our own psyche, our own soul, is a dark place like a cocoon, a chrysalis where we put ourselves so that the life of God can manifest itself more clearly. And there in that cave God is preparing him and then the word of Jehovah came, he said:

“… What are you doing here, Elias? – God's questions are questions designed like those of a psychiatrist to elucidate from us instructive answers. What are you doing here, Elias? Because that question wanted to bring out something that he had hidden in Elijah and he answered him, "I have felt a great zeal for Jehovah, the God of Hosts, because the children of Israel have left your covenant, have demolished your altars and have killed your sword with the sword." prophets and only I am left.”

You see that idea of feeling alone against the whole world and everyone is a scoundrel and I am the only one who has the integrity to stay in place. He does not know that there are 7,000 people who have not bowed their knees to Baal. But he thinks, I'm the only one left, they've killed everyone. That sense of 'I am the only one', I often see many Christians in this church and in other churches who feel like nobody loves them, nobody wants them, nobody appreciates them and they are a prophecy being fulfilled every day. Because likewise if you think they don't love you and don't appreciate you, they won't love you and they won't appreciate you.

While a person believes they are valuable and positive and believes they have things to contribute and is light, people bless them and then they will have more peace, it takes a long time to explain but that is an extra little thing for you.

God asks him what are you doing here? Because he wants to dig into that part of that wound that is in Elijah, that he believes that he is the only one that there is no one else like him and that he is alone, he is abandoned, not even God is fully aware of his needs, for that wants to die, may God kill him.

So he says, uh-huh, that's what you think, come outside. And you know the story, that Elijah is there in front of the cave and there is like a theater of the desert in front of him and the first thing he sees is a great powerful wind that comes moving and is so strong that it breaks mountains and knocks down stones, it is a totally powerful wind. And he says, well, God has to be here. But that happened and God does not appear to him, does not manifest himself.

And then comes, he says, a very powerful earthquake but Jehovah is not in the earthquake either. And after that comes a huge fire but Jehovah was not in the fire either. When the Bible has that ritualistic way of doing things, one after the other the same thing, it is because it wants to teach us a lesson.

Why wind, earthquake, fire? Why those 3 demonstrations? And God was not in any of them, because Elijah was a man of earthquake, wind and fire and he was used to seeing God in those powerful and violent manifestations as he was. And he thought, every time he saw one of these things, there is the spirit of the Lord that wants to tell me something. And God was not in any of them.

God was telling Elijah, "Look, I am more than wind, earthquake and fire, I have a very different manifestation, the one you have seen in that baked cake and in that water and that service that you have received."

I believe that, once again, God wanted to show Elijah an aspect of himself that he was not used to seeing, the merciful, compassionate, tender, kind, patient, servant God. And then he says that after those three powerful manifestations, he says, a soft and small whistle, delicate and small.

Why does Scripture take the trouble to describe that whistling as something gentle and delicate? Because I think there was a lesson in it. And he says, when Elijah heard it, he knew how to discern the presence of God, he covered his face with his mantle and stood at the door of the cave and there the Lord spoke to him again. God was in the small whistle.

Brothers, sometimes we get used to the noise and the bustle and the jumping and the shouting and the one who falls the bow to the sisters and we believe, there is God. Look, many times God is in the silence, in the stillness, in a soft and peaceful song, that's where the Lord is, in the soft moments. Sometimes a person who doesn't say much can have more of God's presence than a screamer who does and undoes.

Get used to discerning the presence of God. Don't let them fool you with all kinds of tricks, speeches and other human things and human artifices. No, discern, where is the presence? After the noise and all the mess, what do I take home? What I learned? What did God tell me? What did God speak? What's in that ministry? What is in that life? What's in that style? That's what matters.

People today are looking everywhere for the next manifestation of God's spirit, wherever someone announces, “Come here, we're going to drive out all the demons here,” and everyone goes there. and that's why they don't grow because they don't stay in one place to be treated. Discern the presence of God because God is not as superficial as we sometimes make him out to be.

In that small, small hiss God speaks to him and asks him again, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" and Elijah responds the same way, and then verse 15 God says to him, “Go, turn your way, through the desert of Damascus and you will come and anoint Hazael King of Syria, Jehu son of Nimshi, you will anoint King on Israel and Elisha, he made Safat and Abel-mehola, you will anoint so that he is a prophet in your place.”

What is God showing you in this? Elias, I am in control. I am in control of Syria, that enemy nation that is persecuting Israel, I am in control even of the world that does not know me out there, so much so that I anoint and unanoint their kings. And I'm in control of Israel too. I am going to choose the next king and you are going to anoint him and also you, I want you to rest and take a retreat, it is time for you to move on to another stage of your life.

But God did not want Elijah to leave this world, without knowing that part, because God is eminently interested in us knowing it. There is a passage that persecutes me in Jeremiah, I think it is chapter 4 that says that the wise should not boast of their wisdom or the brave of their bravery or the strong of their fortitude but should boast if they have to boast in knowing and understanding me , says Jehovah, that I am a God of mercy and justice and judgment because these things I want.

What interests God most is that we know him as he is, with all his complexity and that is what he wanted, that Elias knew him in his two dimensions and that is why he goes through this experience, and that Elias get to know yourself better.

I imagine that when Elijah leaves this experience he leaves purified, lighter, a better servant, more aware of his own insufficiencies and his own weakness as a man. And those are very powerful and much-needed lessons. God wants to reveal himself to your life and God wants to teach you aspects of himself and yourself that you will not know except in the desert and do not be afraid to enter into those experiences. Get the most out of them that you can and get used to being treated and that you treat that wonderfully meticulous and detailed God who wants to reveal himself to you in all his dimension because after all that is what matters most.

If he feels like it, he can evangelize the whole world with a single little angel that he sends there, but what he likes most is to be intimate with his children, that they love him and that they know him, and that is what he wants Through trials, difficulties. As you can see here, through his trial, his tragedy, his ministry failure, Elijah came to know God in a very beautiful way, and himself better as well.

If you are going through tribulations, trials, I encourage you to ask yourself, God, what are you accomplishing through all of this? What do you want to do in me? And the deeper into the desert, get in that cave for a while and let God speak to you. Amen.

Bow your head and let's thank the Lord and ask God to help us to be a church of both fire and still small whistle. Father, may your word continue to speak to us on this day, Lord, and may we leave here strengthened and enriched, Lord, to be better servants of yours. Thank you for not leaving us barren and barren. Thanks for dealing with us. Thank you for loving us enough to take time to work.

And thank you for not giving us everything we want, Lord, and giving us sometimes what we don't want. We love you and we receive everything that comes from your hand, Lord. We adore you and we bless you, Father. Thank you Lord Jesus.

Brothers, just one more moment, I know that time passes, if someone wants to receive prayer and wants to stand up where they are, around what we have talked about, or if they want to receive Christ as Lord and savior, we open this moment also. If God has spoken to you in any way and you want to take that step of faith this morning, I invite you to stand up, from where you are, we can pray for you too. Someone?

God bless you, sister. If there is someone else. God bless you. We love you. God bless you. God loves you so much. Amen. Someone else?

I know that God is going to move. Here behind, this brother too, in these lives. God is touching you around this word that has been preached. Thank my Lord. Thanks, Dad.

Lord, I bless my brothers and sisters this morning who you know as you did and do know Elijah and I bless them in Jesus' name. And I ask that this word, Lord, become real and alive and powerful in their lives. Bring them closer to you, Holy Father. And if they are going through tribulations and needs, we declare your power, Lord, moving, regenerating, working, restoring, strengthening, transforming these lives, Father. I bless them in your name.

Bring them closer to you, Lord, bring them closer to you. If you have stood up to receive Christ as Lord and Savior, actively confess Him in your heart, say, “Lord, I receive You as my Lord and Savior and I confess You as my God. Come into my life and transform me. Fill me with your spirit. I dedicate myself to your service, Lord."

Father, bless your children, bless this church, Lord, bless this people, this word in us, Lord, we receive it and make it ours this morning. Thank you, Father, in the name of Jesus. I bless you my beloved brothers. Amen.