March 5 2026

Into the Wilderness: A Lent Week 3 Reflection

The God Who Meets Us in the Cave

Lent is a season that we often connect with Jesus and his time in the wilderness. I spoke about this a couple weeks ago at Open Arms.

We don’t usually choose the wilderness.
It finds us.

We find ourselves in moments of crisis, or grief, or burnout, or dissapointment. We feel the exhaustion that we don’t know how to name.

People close to us may ask, “How are you?” and we answer “tired” – only because we don’t have other ways to explain that place in our lives. It’s wilderness, it’s desert. It’s hunger. It’s thirst. It’s loneliness.

And then Lent comes along, and the Church invites us to step into places like this – wilderness – on purpose.

Forty days of slowing down.
Fasting.
Reflecting.
Making space.

Sometimes, people look at lent as penance, or punishment. That misses the point.
We aren’t earning forgiveness, or paying for sin, or trying to earn points with God.

Lent is meant to be a season of formation, where we intentionally seek to become the people God wants us to be: connected to Him, dependent on Him, hungry and thirsty for righteousness.

If we want to understand that kind of formation, we need to sit for a while with Elijah.

My kids had a video when they were growing up. I don’t remember if it was a VHS or a DVD, and I don’t remember how it came into our possession, but it was a BBC produced Bible cartoon that was a part of a series. I used to love to watch it with them as it told the story of Elijah. I found it on youtube, so if you want to watch and connect with the story of this wildman, who lived in the wilderness, you may want to watch it to visualize this story.

After the Fire

Elijah had just experienced one of the most dramatic spiritual victories in Scripture.

The prophets of Baal were gathered on Mount Carmel, they were wicked. And Elijah dared them to prove if their false god was real. He prepared a sacrifice, and told the prophets to ask Baal to light it on fire. They cut themselves, they cried, and their god did nothing.

Elijah mocked them, “Maybe your god is sleeping!” (a better translation, maybe your god is pooping!)

Then Elijah asked Jehovah, the One True God to call fire down from heaven. Elijah wanted to prove it boldly, so he soaked it with water. And then God did send fire down.

And then Elijah slaughtered the wicked prophets of Baal.

And then, almost immediately, Elijah ran for his life.

Jezebel made a threat. Fear rushed in. And the prophet who had just stood boldly in front of a nation found himself alone in the wilderness.

God did the impossible, and Elijah is in hiding. Is he doubting God’s protection? Is he just exhausted after that display of faith?

What we see is Elijah, hiding in the wilderness.

Lent often meets us in that space — after the noise, after the intensity, after the adrenaline has faded. It meets us when we’re tired.

“I Have Had Enough”

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah sits down under a broom tree and prays:

“I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

He’s not praying a creed or confession. He’s not praying a polished poem. He’s just being honest with where he is.

The prophet who called down fire from heaven is now asking God to take his life.

God hears these kinds of prayers. Do we think we can hide how we feel from Him?
No! He already knows, and He wants us to confess it to Him.

This ugly prayer tells us that even faithful people get exhausted. It tells us that burnout is not the same thing as unbelief.

Lent gives us room to say what we’ve been trying not to say.

“I’m tired.”
“I’m discouraged.”
“I feel alone.”
“I don’t know if I can keep going.”

God is not threatened by that prayer.

Bread Before Breakthrough

What happens next is just as important as Elijah’s breakdown.

God does not rebuke him. He does not lecture him. He does not shame him.

He lets him sleep.

Then an angel wakes him and says, “Get up and eat.” There’s bread. There’s water. Elijah eats. He sleeps again. And then God feeds him again.

This is proof that God cares for our needs. He sees our need for rest. He sees our need for water. He sees our need for food.

And He meets it.

1 Peter 5:7 says

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

Lent is not about self-punishment. Even fasting, at its best, is not about hurting yourself to impress God. It’s about retraining your dependence. It’s about remembering what actually sustains you.

Elijah needed food before he needed direction. God knew that.

Forty Days

Strengthened by that food, Elijah travels forty days and forty nights to Horeb — the mountain of God.

Forty days.

The number isn’t random.

Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness.
Jesus fasted forty days before beginning His ministry.
And every year, we walk through forty days of Lent.

Wilderness time is patterned in Scripture. It is the rhythm God uses to shape His people.

Forty days is long enough for illusions to fade. Long enough for noise to settle. Long enough to confront what we’ve been avoiding.

And it’s long enough for God to start working on bring healing to those places.

The Cave

When Elijah reaches Horeb, he goes into a cave.

And God asks him a question:

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

God knows the answer. He always does.

God knows Elijah is hiding. But He asks Elijah, because God wants a relationship with him.

Elijah speaks his fear. He speaks his frustration. He says he feels alone. He believes he is the only one left.

Sometimes we don’t realize what’s shaping us until we say it out loud.

What cave are you sitting in right now?

Fear?
Disappointment?
Resentment?
Shame?
Exhaustion?

Let’s sit here, in the cave, in the wilderness, with God, long enough for us to tell Him the truth.

Wind, Earthquake, Fire

Then God answers Elijah.

A powerful wind tears through the mountains.
An earthquake shakes the ground.
A fire passes by.

But the Lord is not in the wind.
Not in the earthquake.
Not in the fire.

Elijah had seen God in fire before. That’s what he knew. That’s what made sense to him.

But this time, God chooses a different way.

We often look for God in the dramatic. We expect Him in the visible breakthrough, the emotional surge, the obvious miracle.

Lent gently dismantles that expectation. It removes the noise. It lowers the volume.

The Whisper

After the wind, earthquake, and fire, Scripture says there was “a gentle whisper.”

Some translations say “a still small voice.” Others say “a low whisper.”

And you cannot hear a whisper if you are constantly surrounded by noise.

You cannot hear a whisper if you refuse to be still.

You cannot hear a whisper if you are always filling silence.

For myself, when I’m silent, or when I’m hungry, there’s a painful and uncomfortable place under the surface. I find, that the mind-numbing scrolling through social media, or the crunch of potato chips, or the sweetness of a candy bar make that uncomfortable or painful thing go away.

It really doesn’t. It just buries it.

What if this is the time to dig out the uncomfortable truths about ourselves that we avoid?
What if Lent is an opportunity to feel the hunger, to sit in the silence, and then be honest with God and ourselves about what we are feeling?

Lent is practice in listening.
Not just listening to sermons.
Not just listening to music.
But listening for the whisper.

Listening to Jesus.

The God who met Elijah in the cave still speaks that way. He still forms us that way.

No Shame. Only Direction.

When God spoke in that whisper, He gives Elijah direction.

He sends him back. He gives him assignments. He reminds him that he is not alone. There are seven thousand others who have not bowed to Baal.

The cave was not Elijah’s final destination. It was a place of restoration.

The wilderness was not the end of his story. It was preparation.

This 40 days isn’t about retreat and escape – it’s about being fed, quieted, and reminded of who God is – so that we can step boldly into what He is calling us to do, with confidence.