A tale of 2 mountains

In my previous post, I mentioned about Elijah  where God questioned him as to why he has gone to Mt Horeb.  Before coming to Horeb, Elijah was at another mountain, Mt Carmel, where he alone contended with the false prophets of Baal and Asherah.  The contrast between these two mountains cannot be more startling.  In life, we can spend an inordinate amount of time in one mountain at the expense of the other.

Mt Carmel represents our life filled with activities and performance, just like Elijah where he conducted a miracle campaign in front of the people of Israel with showmanship thrown in for good measure.  To be sure, he called on God to rain down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice.  God answered his prayer and the Israelites acknowledged Jehovah as the true God. Elijah had all the false prophets slain. It was, to say the least, a very successful outcome to the contest Elijah had thrown the gauntlet at the false prophets. However, this great performance took a toll on Elijah's socio-emotional well-being.  No wonder he suffered a burnout and went into depression at the threat from Jezebel.   It was indeed a spiritual battle at its peak whereby the forces of darkness were sent helter-skelter.  Our life is a constant battle between good and evil, whether we are involved in spiritual or so called secular work.

Mt Horeb represents our life filled with quietness and refreshing as we wait for God to speak and minister to us.  We certainly do not have knowledge of all things and sometimes we need to hear a revelation from God to enable us to put things in perspective.  As we allow God to mould us, our lives would be transformed by the His power, just like Elijah where he was no longer afraid of Jezebel's threat and went back to continue the rest of what God intended him to do.  Mt Horeb is time alone with God as opposed to attending a prayer meeting whereby it can degenerate into performance mode, if we are not careful.  It is less of talking and more of listening to God, which is a great discipline by itself.

The question to ask ourselves: Which mountain am I spending most of my time in 2013?
Certainly, we cannot avoid Mt Carmel but we have to endeavour to spend more time at Mt Horeb.
May the new year 2014 bring us more to Horeb!