A Runaway Hero

Martyn Payne

On Your Marks:

Again and again throughout the Bible we find God searching for those who are lost. In many ways the whole Bible is a story of 'lost and found'. People choose to go their own way and leave the security of God's love but God does not give up on them. God comes searching to bring people home because, as St Augustine's prayer puts it, 'we are restless, until we find our rest in [God]'.

This session is part of a series that explores this theme in stories from the Old and New Testaments. In each we see individuals who are lost for a variety of reasons, but God rejoices to find them again and bring them back to his loving arms.

The following outline focuses on the story of Elijah who runs from Queen Jezebel. God finds him in a cave on Mount Horeb and comes close to him in an unexpected way.

Get Set:

Use the retelling of this story from The Barnabas Children's Bible, story 169, page 151 'Earthquake, fire and whisper'.

You can also find the story in 1 Kings 19:1-16.

Go!

1. It seems the case that a tremendous time of success is often followed very quickly by a time feeling depressed and lonely. This is exactly what happened to Elijah. He had been the great hero in the battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He defeated them in a fair contest to show who was the true God. Almost immediately, however, we find him running for his life from Queen Jezebel.

Play a game of opposites:. whatever you say to the group, they must do the exact opposite. For example:

' Jump up high' means they must crouch down low.

'Put on a big smile' means they must look very sad.

'Look very angry' means they must act as if all is sweetness and light.

'Run to the left' means run to the right, and so on.

Hero Elijah should be on top of the world; instead, he is down in the dumps.

2. Sometimes when we feel depressed like this, all we want to do is run away.

Elijah runs south to the desert. He just wants for it all to end.

Everything seems to have been a waste of time.

Have the children in your group ever felt 'fed up' like this? What has helped them, if anything?

God's recipe for help was some good food, a drink and a good night's sleep. God tends to his practical needs first.

Exercise and a good meal help Elijah. God has found him in his depression and is beginning to sort him out.

Do some fun keep-fit exercises with the group, as you ‘walk’ with Elijah the 40-day journey towards Mount Sinai, which is the new direction God gives him.

Mount Horeb, as Mount Sinai is also known, was God's special mountain, where Moses had met with God.

3. On Mount Horeb/Sinai in a cave, God comes close to Elijah but not in the way he expected.

Ask the group to create some makeshift percussion instruments, perhaps from the kitchen area if possible. Use some pans and wooden spoons, along with some card, which can be used to create a wind or the sound of thunder; also some chopsticks, which, tapped together, can be like the rain and some tinfoil, which when shook can be like flames. Let them use their imagination (within safety boundaries!)

Now invite the addition of these sound effects as you read what happened to Elijah from The Barnabas Children's Bible, story 169.

How well can the group create the sound of the wind and the rocks crashing together? Or the earthquake and the fire crackling? Of course they can also clap hands or tap fingers on their palms to create sounds as well.

Finally ask them to be very still to see if they can hear 'a whisper'. The leader should secretly have asked one child to whisper the name Elijah as quietly as possible. Will the others hear and be able to identify who is making the whispering sound?

4. Elijah had seen God act very noisy and dramatically on Mount Carmel. There he was the God who answered by fire. But on Mount Horeb/Sinai, Elijah learns this is not the only way that God speaks.

We also need to learn to listen for God in the silence.

Talk with the group about how they hear God's voice.

Is it quietly in their minds/heads? Or is it though what another person says? Is it via something unusual that happens or something that they see? Or something they read?

How do they/can we know it is God speaking?

I wonder how Elijah knew that God wasn't in the loud noises but he was in the whisper?

5. God had found Elijah in his depression and God's answer was to give him new work to do.

God didn't spend time explaining as to why it had all happened; or try to put Elijah's thinking right; nor did he indulge Elijah's self-pity. Instead, Elijah had a new job that moved him forward not backward. He was to anoint a new king and find a new apprentice to take over his job one day soon. And God also reminded him that there were others out there who believed in God. Elijah was not alone.

As a visual aid of the way that God speaks to us in the whisper among all the other noises around us every day, create a group picture together. On a large piece of card or wallpaper roll invite the group to draw pictures of some very noisy things going on, for example:

thunderstorms, loud music at a concert, stormy winds, angry traffic noises, cheering crowds, crashing waves, and so on.

And then somewhere (let the group decide where in the picture), in a very small space and in tiny words within a speech bubble, add 'God speaks'.

6. For your time of prayer together, dare to spend as long as you can in quiet! Explain to the children that you are going to ask God to speak into that quiet. One way Christians down the ages have found helpful to do this is to find a comfortable sitting position, to close their eyes or perhaps focus on a single object like a candle, and then to breathe in and out slowly, concentrating on the breathing. It also might help to say the name of Jesus quietly in their minds.

After as long a time of silence as you think is possible, ask the group if they think they have heard something from God. However, don't pressurize any of them to have heard something.

7. Key thought: God came and found Elijah in his depression and loneliness. God taught him something new about how to listen to God. Even a great hero like Elijah had something to learn about God and, in this way, God brought some good out of a bad experience.

Return to the Ideas homepage