Probably already emotionally exhausted from the Mount Carmel confrontation, the prophet becomes completely overwhelmed: he lets fear get the better of him, and he runs away. Fleeing for his life, he treks into the wilderness until he finally collapses under a tree. He is so discouraged and disillusioned that he even tells God he wants to die. He feels completely alone, as if no one understands him and no one else is truly faithful to God.
You probably remember how God first ministers to Elijah's immediate physical needs - for food, drink and sleep - but then He begins to address the prophet's deeper, underlying spiritual and emotional needs. A huge display of power (wind, earthquake, fire) demonstrates the strength and sovereignty of God, but it's with a gentle whisper that He begins to speak to Elijah's heart. He asks him a simple question: What are you doing here, Elijah? Why did you let fear get the better of you? Why are you crying under a tree, and hiding away in a cave?
God's response to fear is always the same. He wraps us in His arms and He tells us, "Fear not! Don't be afraid." But after God has Elijah's attention, after He's asked him what he's doing here, God's voice tells him where he actually should be: "Go back, the same way that you came." Whenever we allow our fears to make us run away, God's response will often be what we see here: He will need to send us back to where He wants us to be, and not the place we allowed our fear to take us to. Very often we'll find that our fears were unfounded and that we got things out of perspective. (Elijah thought he was the only faithful believer left, but God told him there were 7000 others who had never bowed the knee to Baal.)
All the media hype around the coronavirus is of course an attempt to make people be wise and careful; but it's also promoting fear and panic. As Christians, we want to embrace wisdom; having faith is not a substitute for following current guidelines about hygiene, hand washing or social distance. But we don't want to embrace fear; there is no place for fear in the kingdom of God. Our response to a situation like the coronavirus will be very telling; it will test whether our lives are built on an unshakeable foundation or whether we will easily be swept off course by fear and doubt.
I feel as if this coronavirus is a bit like the lion and bear for the people of God. It's our training ground, a place of testing to see if we can walk the talk when it comes to being part of God's unshakeable kingdom. If we can't refuse fear and demonstrate trust in the face of a virus, where will we be when times of persecution threaten us? Jesus warned us in the New Testament that wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilences and persecution would all come against us in the last days of world history. The world is going to be even more shaken up than it has been so far, and we won't cope very well if our lives aren't firmly grounded in Him.
And so I have to ask myself again: six months, or twelve months, or eighteen months from now, when I look back on this season of coronavirus, will I see that my life was different from those around me, that there was an "unshakeable" quality that pointed other people to the God who can never be shaken? Or will I see that a sense of fear was paralysing me and blowing me off course?
I don't believe that this virus came from God. But I do believe that He can use it to test us and purify us, to make us the sort of people who can demonstrate His peace and His presence to a world where shaking fills people with fear and despair.
