The Slow Way: Lent, Vulnerability, and the Voice of God
God’s voice often comes to us in the way we need, in our core identity, where we are most vulnerable.
Let’s Start With An Old Story
There was a man named Elijah who spoke out against the systems of evil among his people. He seemed to be the only guy around who wasn’t afraid of the powerful queen and her king—rulers who rejected the faith of Israel’s ancestors, who reigned without mercy. So Elijah, brave and bold, became the mouthpiece of Israel’s one true God, confronting the king and queen: They had failed to follow the vows they had made, to Israel’s God and to their people. They had led their people toward other gods.
Then he took on the priests of one of those other gods in a “Whose god is best?” contest, mocked them as they moaned and bowed and beat their chests, begging: “Save us! Love us!” Their god never answered; Elijah’s did. His God brought fire when the other gods would not. And Elijah won. (Then, let’s just tell the truth: He killed those prophets of the other god. It was ugly.)
Elijah was pretty used to his God winning in spectacular ways. His God listened when Elijah cursed the land with drought. His God provided endless flour and oil for him and the ones who helped him, while so many of the Israelite people went without. His God even ended the drought when Elijah figured enough time had passed.
Elijah had every reason to believe. But, like all of us, faith is a daily, repetitive choice. There are always days when we’re not so sure that what we saw in the fire or the drought, or the endless supply of olive oil, or the moment of thrilling clarity, can continue carrying us through the fear of the moment.
And so, if we’re like Elijah, and the queen wants to gut us the same way we gutted her prophets on the hillside (Just raising my hand here to say, maybe that wasn’t the best call, Elijah?) — that’s when we become afraid. So afraid that all the courage from before, all the clarity that got us to our positions of power and authority, isn’t enough for this moment. We run.
And then we give up. That’s what Elijah did. Exhausted and done with “proving” God’s realness via flame and drought and sword, Elijah got to the edge of himself, and sat down to ask that it all end. “Take my life, Lord. I am no better than my ancestors.” And of course, any of us who have lived through the dark clouds of depression and anxiety know that when all hope is lost, we have two tasks: eat and sleep. Once our bellies are full and we’ve gotten a good eight hours, then we are allowed to come back to the existential sorrow. (At least that’s my rule.)
Elijah wasn’t really following best practices when it came to mental health, but he did fall asleep. So God, who loved him very much, took care of the rest. God sent an angel who knew a little something about baking bread over coals (not an easy task). I’m imagining that the process of waiting for the yeast to rise and actually getting the bread to bake in the wild took about as long as Elijah needed for a rested body. The angel woke him up and assured him that angel-bread baked over hot coals is just what Elijah needed. A jar of water too.
The next part of that story is not my favorite. That water and bread seems to have been enough for our hero to travel forty more days (the length of Lent). This sounds terrible to me. But I’m not here to judge the power of angel-bread. Elijah got past his death wish and made it to the mountain where God first revealed the Way to Moses.
He’d traveled forty days. He’d lived through threats, through his own violence, through drought and provision. He’d even lived through hearing the voice of God. What is left when we really don’t have it in us to keep going, to keep believing?
God comes to him with a question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah essentially says, “I’ve tried so hard, for a really long time. I’m the only one left on your team. And I’m tired of being your man.”
This, my friends, is a Lenten story. It’s a story about exhaustion, about going without, about losing ourselves in sorrow, about nourishing ourselves and accepting that rest is part of the process of faith. It’s a story about God showing up in unexpected ways: Bread and water. Courage. The ability to pilgrimage for 40 days until we come to the mountain of God.
Hearing From God
I taught my high school students this week about the voice of God. We looked at the different ways Jesus called his disciples to follow him: How for some he provided a stunner of a miracle, just to blow their minds enough that they could trust he was who he said he was. For others he spoke to their pain: He acknowledged that Nathanael experienced something important under the fig tree, something that remains hidden to the reader, but central to Nathanael’s core—Jesus understood him. For Nathanael, this is exactly what he needed. We don’t see Jesus’s calling of Simon the Zealot, but we know Jesus preached a way of living that asked Simon to pursue truth outside of the path of violence. He spoke to Simon’s core as well.
How does God speak to us? I told my high school students this: Sometimes God speaks through pain, sometimes through our core needs, sometimes by insisting we let go of the one thing we’ve built our identity around: Simon the Zealot and his sword. Nathanael and his Enneagram 4 energy.
What had Elijah built his identity around besides wild signs and visions? Elijah was right. He was the only one left on God’s team. He was the one who stood up and screamed for fire to come down from above. (And it happened!) He was the one who demanded that the folks in power suffer for the oppression of their people. (And it worked! It also gave him lots of enemies.) Eljah was a prophet’s prophet, known for God’s voice showing up in all the ways humans like for God to show up — Natural Phenomenon! Loud Wind! Violence!
But, as Jesus demonstrated with his friends, God’s voice often comes to us in the way we need, in our core identity, where we are most vulnerable. God takes Elijah to the holiest of mountains and says, “Hey! Keep a lookout, I’m coming through!” And then God proceeds to bring all the big flashy things: a tornado, an earthquake, a fire. Somehow Elijah gets that the flash-bangs of it all are not revealing the mystery of God. When does God finally show up? It’s in the quiet voice, the whisper. God’s voice arrives outside of the ways Elijah has grown to rely on.
It’s ordinary.
In Lent we remind ourselves that for all the stories of God’s voice showing up in flames, there are so many more stories of bread being baked over coals, of loved ones arriving in our lowest moments with a Casserole From The Lord. We need the voice of God to speak in our bread, in our rest, in our friendships, in our moments of pain. We need God’s presence to show us that we’re seen, understood. We need to be challenged to live outside of the ways we have always understood ourselves.
Lent’s very nature is to ask us to make ourselves vulnerable — adding or subtracting from what we’ve grown used to. This helps us see our longings and our limits in ways that have the power to transform us. Vulnerability allows us to open to direction and guidance and even comfort from God. We’re Nathanael weeping under the fig tree wondering if God even sees us. We are Elijah ready to give it all up but instead finding the strength to keep going — not despite but because of the quiet. We are Simon the Zealot, prone to violence and invited to reimagine a better way.
The voice of God is always loudest in the places we are most vulnerable. So may we get still enough that we can turn our attention to the voice of God, speaking in all the places we forgot to look.
A Slow Practice
This second full week of Lent I’d love for you to join me for a walk, and a sit under a tree, a reminder of Elijah giving up and getting that much needed rest, as well as Nathanael’s moment of angst. In both of these stories God met the hero in their place of vulnerability.
Maybe this isn’t a particularly vulnerable season for you. Perhaps things are going okay, and you’re experiencing a truly good and easy moment in your life. If that’s the case, Lent is an opportunity to allow your spiritual practices to take you deeper into your whys. Why do you react the way you do to joy, to ease? Where does God want to meet you in this moment of sweetness?
For those of us who feel we are in a long season of unease or struggle, we may need God to meet us in the most basic ways—through a good meal or a cold glass of water, through a much needed nap or a vision of the first bloom of the season.
Today, wherever you find yourself, I’m inviting you to take a walk. You may be hardcore and make it a hike, or it may be a gentle stroll through your neighborhood or park. Here’s the most important rule for our walk! Pack a snack!
That’s right, pack a piece of bread (if you want to get biblical) or a piece of fruit or a granola bar, and some water. (Or stop along the way and get yourself a pastry and coffee!)
Somewhere along your walk, find a place to sit down. Purposefully pull out your snack. Close your eyes and imagine Elijah running from his haters, hiding out and giving up. Then imagine Nathanael, feeling unseen and unknown, sitting under the fig tree. Elijah said, “I have had enough Lord.”
In what parts of your life have you had enough? What is the vulnerability of your Lenten practice revealing to you about your limits and your longings?
Open your eyes and take sometime to eat your snack and drink your water, paying attention to their flavor and the goodness of the moment. Ask God to show you a bit of what Elijah felt when he ate that Angel Bread. Ask God to meet you in your limits, to speak to you this season in exactly the way you need.
A List of Things
My beloved The Lucky Few Podcast has taken a Winter hiatus and is coming back strong with a new season this Thursday, March 20. This season we’re doing some new things, including adding a special guest host for the season (Who could it be???) and adding a Patreon program we’re calling The Lucky Crew, for whom we’ll be dropping lots of fun bonus episodes!
This is a big week! March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day (3/21 for 3 copies of the 21st chromosome.) Whether or not your life intertwines with Down syndrome in a meaningful way, it matters that all of us take a day to remember the diversity of ways we can be human, and the gift of people in our lives who experience the world differently. It’s particularly important right now as we in the US have leaders who not only choose to use demeaning language around people intellectual or developmental disabilities, but are actively working to remove foundational and protective supports and services for students with disabilities: Cutting significant roles in the Department of Education, including the Institute of Education Sciences, which supply important research on supports for students with disabilities, along with the recent addition of an “End DEI” website where the public can report schools using Diversity Equity and Inclusion practices. (This is very confusing, of course, because laws like IDEA, Section 504, and the ADA mandate inclusive practices.) All of this is leading to chaos and fear for those in our communities who rely on laws like IDEA that are foundational for our loved ones’ belonging in society. (If you want to understand more, I highly recommend Ashley Barlow’s work on IG. She’s a Special Education Lawyer and breaks some really complicated stuff into lay people talk.) All this to say, a lot is at stake right now for those of us who love someone with Down syndrome. This week, will you honor World Down Syndrome Day by doing some research, sharing a story on socials, or call your congressperson to voice your concern?
I’m delighted to share that my favorite fella around (aka husband), is adding his particularly wise, fun, and attentive voice to Land of Substack. He’s been thinking, writing, and wrestling through ideas of MidLife for a while now, and I love that he’s decided to start sharing his passion project in a public place. Expect silliness, lots of acronyms, and a weekly read that’s way less serious than what I’m doing over here, but deeply wise. Hope you’ll give The MidLife Edit a try.
Also, have you gotten a copy of Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole? You should get it here! Or find the audiobook version (I read it!) at Audible.
This post really met me where I was today! Thank you ❤️