By J.R. Miller
"What are you doing here, Elijah?" 1 Kings 19:9
It was Elijah. He was not where he should have been. There was a place that needed him and missed him. Noble man as he was, strong and true and faithful in the main, here for once he had failed God. It is a high privilege to be a man that God can trust, knowing that he will always be loyal and will do his duty without wavering. It is a great honor to be a man that people can trust. Yet this honor brings with it serious responsibility. It puts us under the most sacred obligation to have others regard us as wise, turning to us for advice and counsel in their perplexity; or strong, coming to us for help in their weakness; or safe, fleeing to us for refuge in their danger. No other motive for fidelity and truth makes stronger appeal to our hearts--than the consciousness that others are trusting us, taking us for guide and example, leaning on us, following us. A man who occupies such a place among men--needs to keep most careful watch upon himself.
"What would happen," asked a visitor of a light-house keeper, "if your lamps should go out some night?" "Impossible!" replied the old man, in startled tone. Then he went on to tell what would happen out on the sea where sailors trusted him and watched in the darkness for the shining of his lamp. Men who come to be trusted and turned to by others--occupy a position of still greater responsibility. Suppose that they should fail! Suppose that they should falter in a time when many eyes are upon them, when many lives in stress are depending on them, what disasters to faith and confidence would result!
One writes to a man who had proved strong and brave and true, bold--yet gentle, telling what this friend had been to him, "a hero in a world of false ideals."
There is not one of us to whom, in lesser or greater measure, this appeal may not be made. Somebody trusts us, believes in us, looks to us for strength. To somebody, we stand as the very rock on which their faith leans. If we should fail, the person's belief in Christ would be shaken, perhaps destroyed. How this consciousness should constrain and compel us to be true! Remembering what we have confessed ourselves to be, what profession we have made, what we have already done to win the confidence and the love of others, and what people now expect to find in us--we dare not falter or prove false! The Master will follow us into our place of flight and disloyalty, and will ask us with startling directness, "What are you doing here?"
The old prophet had fled from his duty. At Mount Horeb God met him with that searching question, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Every word in the question is emphatic. Think who Elijah was--a great prophet. Recall his splendid faith and courage a little way back. One of the finest scenes of all history is the contest on Mount Carmel, when Elijah stood, one man--against king, prophets, and nation. His whole story, up to the time of his flight, is one of noble achievement and magnificent faith. It was strange, indeed, to find such a man as that away from his place, in flight.
We are often called to stand in places of privilege and honor. We confess Christ before men, we sit at His table, we speak His name, we do worthy things for Him, we stand loyally for Him in great crises. Then tomorrow something happens, and we fail Him. "What are you doing here?" our Master asks in grief at finding us in some place where we ought not to be, or doing something we ought not to do. Those who have been honored by our Lord, who have been trained by Him, who have stood loyally for Him, yesterday or today--should never fail or disappoint Him!
A soldier, in the midst of a great battle, confessed that he would have fled from the field, but for his character. He had a standard to live up to. If he had fled, he would have dishonored his own name. He dared not run away, and thus blot and stain his reputation as a soldier, for the stain of cowardice is ineffaceable.
"What are you doing here?" The prophet had no duty there. He was in an empty wilderness. There was nothing there for him to do. There were no people within reach to whom he could carry comfort or help. If the Lord had come to him when he was hiding by the brook Cherith, or when he was living quietly in the widow's home at Zarephath, and had asked him what he was doing there--he could have answered that he was there in obedience to a divine command. There may have been no specific work for him there--but he was doing the will of the Lord in his inactivity--his seeming uselessness was the divine plan for him just then.
Just so, sometimes God wants us away from the crowded thoroughfare, from scenes of activity, in a quiet place, resting rather than toiling, waiting instead of running. Elijah had such days. Then he could have answered that the Lord had bidden him to wait. But he could not answer thus in the cave at Horeb. God had not sent him there. Horeb was a sacred place, too--the mountain of God. But it was not a sacred place to Elijah that day--because his duty was not there.
Just so, even the holiest place fails to be a place of blessing--if we are not there in accordance with God's will. The church is God's house and is holy. But it is easy to conceive of cases when men and women would be sadly out of place in a church, even at a holy service. God's will for them is work--not worship. If a physician, for example, should leave a sick-room when his presence and skill were needed in some critical case, when a life depended upon his instant watchfulness, and go to his church to attend a communion service, the Master would follow him, and would ask, "What are you doing here, Doctor?" He would be away from his duty.
There may be times in the experience of any of us, when it would not be our duty to go to a holy service, into our closet of prayer, or even to the Lord's table, because there is some duty outside, which imperatively demands our attention, and which we may not neglect even in order to wait upon the Lord. We can meet our Lord only where He has appointed for us to meet Him, and sometimes this may be in the place of love's duty outside, in the thick of life's busy scenes--rather than in some sacred place of devotion.
"What are you doing here?" Elijah was doing nothing; he was hiding. He had no duty, no errand, at Horeb. Far away was work not being done at all--which he ought to have been doing that hour. The same question, asked so long ago of the prophet, is spoken to us every day. It is well that we should heed it, that we may not grow negligent concerning our duty.
The Master has something for us to do each moment. There is always a place in which He would have us engaged. It may not be a conspicuous place; it may be narrow, small, uncongenial, or hard. It may not be a place for work at all--sometimes we are called apart to wait or to suffer. But whatever the place may be in which the Master wants us, any day or hour--that is the best place in all the world for us to be, the only fit place, the only place of blessing. The duty there may seem insignificant--but nothing else we could do would be half so great, since it is God's will for us. It may seem a small matter to speak a kind word or to do a trifling favor for another--but nothing is small when it is God's will, and the failure to do the least duty in any day will leave a flaw which cannot be mended.
Let us listen for the Master's call to duty. Let us be where He wants us to be, and do what He wants us to do--no matter how hard it may be. The cost of refusal will always be greater than that of obedience. Let us never fail our Master when He depends on us for any service or task for Him. Let us never fail those who trust us and look to us for faithfulness or for love's help.
