In times like these, when lines have been drawn and trenches have been dug between ‘us and them,’ it can be difficult to imagine that we are not alone in our struggles. If we’ve ever been hurt or abandoned by friends or family, the hurdle of loneliness seems nearly impossible to overcome. If we’ve ever encountered insensitivity, callousness, or rejection from our spiritual community – the pain seems nearly impossible to recover from.
So, what do we do?
In times like these, fraught as they are, we must remain open and sensitive to the work of the Spirit in unlikely and unexpected places. We need to seek God’s presence, even as it is manifest among people we would have otherwise discounted. Maybe they don’t look like us, or come from places familiar to us, maybe they speak another language, or maybe we have cast them as foes rather than friends…
Whatever the case, we must resist the urge to isolate. According to author, educator, and social critic, bell hooks, no one heals in isolation – and I’m inclined to agree. Regardless of how pronounced the divides become across our communities, God’s people must continue to seek one another. Our safety and our healing are in our community.
When our default becomes isolation and hunkering down, we can become attached to the idea that we are the only ones going through struggle. This myopia is a downward and backwards spiral.
When we begin to believe that we are the ‘only ones,’ we can assume an attitude that no one knows and no one cares, and in reaction become suspicious, careless, and callous.
In Elijah’s case, his prophetic calling and the trouble it caused him, isolation led him to believe that he was alone in his struggle against corrupt powers in high places. At a point of frustration and fear, Elijah says,
“I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”
1 Kings 19:10
Elijah was wrong. In despair, Elijah questioned God, and God responded. Not with thunder and lightning, fire or wind, but with a whisper – God responded. Not in the overwhelming and outstanding supernatural ways Elijah encountered previously, but with a still, small voice, God answered.
God reminded Elijah that he wasn’t alone and that thousands of others remained faithful.
Today, God wants us to know that we are not alone. While we may not encounter supernatural incursions of the Spirit, God is present and at work among people we have yet to meet, and in places we’ve never imagined.
We are not alone!
So, let’s remain open and receptive to the unexpected ways God will show up among others who share our cause and have remained faithful! We are not alone!
“Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
1 Kings 19:18
Questions to Consider:
- In what ways are you and your community opening yourselves to encounter God’s presence and work among those beyond your context?
- How do you identify allies, in a context so fractured by labels and ideologies that are upstream to our faith?
- As a leader, how and where are you finding community?
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