The Cave

“Sometimes self-obsession doesn’t look like vain pride. Sometimes it looks more like fixating on our hard circumstances. Sometimes it looks like allowing everything in your life to revolve around what you’ve lost instead of the hope you’ve found in Jesus.”

This is a blog I have written and re-written in my head for a while. It’s one I desperately want to share and one that I desperately want to keep to myself. It is a story of vulnerability and humility but also one of victory. It is a testimony of how the Lord meets us where we are, even when we withdraw, even when we hide.

I have shared about the events of 2021 in previous posts. But for some of you who don’t know, my family lost my stepmom to Covid on January 1st. It was horrific and traumatizing in so many ways. I have never walked through this type of intense grief before then. The Lord is good, and He led me through it. He even showed me more of His goodness. But in the process, I began to retreat. I began to fixate on the loss, and I turned inward. It consumed my thoughts, and while I appeared to be fine on the outside, I walked around in a fog. My mind was weighed down with sadness, and I felt like I could barely focus or hold a real conversation.

I know the first year of grief is often the hardest. I found myself thinking “If I can just make it through the first year, then it’ll be ok.”  In January of this year, we hit the one-year mark. And I began a Bible study that had been sitting on my counter for months. Oh, how I wish I had started it sooner. It was a study on the life of Elijah, a major prophet in the Old Testament. *I HIGHLY recommend it! I will link it at the end.

Let’s talk about Elijah for a minute. He was a bold prophet because He drew on the power of the Lord. He met with Him. He waited on Him, even withdrawing to a brook in the middle of nowhere until God told Him to move. On Mount Caramel, he boldly challenged the people of Israel to turn from the worship of Baal. He proves that the Lord is the one and only God by petitioning Him to rain down fire, consuming the altar and all of the water surrounding it. It was a grand display of God’s power over worthless gods, and there is so much I could unpack about this moment in scripture! Go read 1 Kings 18 for the whole story (It’s incredible!). But this act angers Jezebel, a queen who worshipped Baal and hated the prophets of the Lord. She vows to kill Elijah, and he runs for his life.

After such an amazing act of the Lord, Elijah flees. He is overcome by fear. He runs for roughly 120 miles, wanders in the desert for 40 days and nights, and then goes even further to Mt. Horeb. He retreats into a cave, possibly the cave where Moses met with the Lord to receive the Law. This prophet is overcome with what many would identify as depression. He feels as if he is the only one left who will worship the Lord.

Here is the part that shook me. I picture Elijah hiding in the recesses of the cave. Alone. Consumed by his thoughts and fears. Isolated. Hungry. He literally wishes for death. Arguably the greatest prophet wishes for death! Then God interrupts and asks him, “…What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9 ESV). Elijah responds, saying that he has been faithful to the Lord, but the people have forsaken His ways and are killing the prophets. He claims he is the only one left. His answer is self-focused. God beckons him out of the cave, but Elijah remains inside. After monstruous weather events in which the Lord is NOT present (wind, earthquake, fire), the Lord speaks in a low, almost inaudible whisper. It is the whisper that finally draws Elijah from the cave. And God again asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah’s response is the same- again self-focused. But I love the Lord’s question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Because in the moment I read it, I know God was asking the same question of me.

“What are you doing here, Alecia? Why are you still here?” I had retreated into a cave. It was partially a cave of fear- fear of the death of people I loved. It was a cave of sadness. It was a cave of insecurity. It was a cave entirely focused on myself. Grieving is a process, but I had allowed it to cripple me. And for several months, I know God was beckoning me to walk out. I was trapped. And my answer to Him was “well, I have been through a lot this year. A lot of sickness, and sadness, and loss. So I just need some time.”

Self-focused.

Read this portion of Priscilla Shirer’s study with me: “Yahweh’s voice not only beckoned Elijah to come of the dank, dark cave where he’d run and hidden himself away—not only to come out of there physically—but also to emerge spiritually, mentally, and emotionally from the self-obsession he’d allowed to overtake his whole outlook on life.”

To emerge in more ways than one. Sometimes self-obsession doesn’t look like vain pride. Sometimes it looks more like fixating on our hard circumstances. Sometimes it looks like allowing everything in your life to revolve around what you’ve lost instead of the hope you’ve found in Jesus.

There’s more: “With his spiritual gaze and eyesight lowered from heaven down to earth, with his emotions misdirected onto himself and his circumstances, Elijah had become a shell of whom he once was” (Elijah). That last phrase broke me. Because it was me. I was a shell of myself, but most people had no idea. I was merely existing and not living out God’s assignment for my life.

It was in that moment I walked out of the cave. I realized I was using my grief as an excuse. I realized that although grief is a process and a justifiable one, I had allowed it to turn my entire focus on myself. What started as grief morphed into fear, apathy, complaining, and despair. And that isn’t the way God has called us to live.

Walking out of the cave was the best thing I could do in that moment. I realigned my focus onto the Savior. I found hope and purpose in my loss. Maybe your cave isn’t one of grief. Maybe it is a cave of fear. Maybe it is pride. Maybe you are stuck in a cave of doubt or apathy or disobedience. Maybe it is disappointment in your circumstances. But I can hear the Lord saying “What are you doing here? Why are you still here?”

Check out this amazing Bible Study—> Elijah: Faith and Fire by Priscilla Shirer