Drench the Bull

When I was in high school, my football coach, Ken Moyer, told us about playing ping-pong with T.J. Houshmandzadeh, the Cincinnati Bengals receiver who was famous for being good at it. Coach Moyer was losing. Then he let T.J. know he had been playing with his left hand even though he was right-handed. He switched hands and started scoring.

T.J. had a surprise of his own. He had also been holding back, playing with his other hand. He switched to his stronger hand and quickly won. Coach Moyer had been making the game harder for himself, and T.J. had been doing the same. Once they stopped handicapping themselves, the match changed.

That story came back to me while thinking about Elijah on Mount Carmel. Elijah did something that made an already impossible situation look even more impossible: he drenched the bull and the altar with water.

A drought that challenged Baal

Israel had turned from God. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel promoted the worship of Baal, a god people believed controlled rain, storms, and harvests. Elijah announced that there would be no rain except at God's word. The drought lasted for years, and the land suffered.

During that time, God cared for Elijah in unexpected ways. At the Brook Cherith, ravens brought him food, and he drank from the brook until it dried up. God then sent him to Zarephath, where a widow shared what little food she had. Her flour and oil did not run out. Later, when her son died, Elijah prayed, and the boy came back to life.

By the time Elijah stood on Mount Carmel, he had already seen God provide in a dry stream, an almost-empty kitchen, and a grieving home. Now he faced a public test of who was truly God.

The altar gets drenched

Ahab gathered the people and 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah asked Israel to stop wavering between two choices: if the Lord was God, follow him; if Baal was god, follow him. The people did not answer.

The prophets of Baal prepared their offering and called on their god from morning until afternoon. Nothing happened. There was no voice and no answer.

Then Elijah repaired the Lord's altar with twelve stones, laid out the wood and the bull, and had a trench dug around it. He asked for four large jars of water to be poured over the offering and the wood. He had them do it a second time, then a third. Water ran over everything and filled the trench.

Elijah prayed simply, asking God to answer so the people would know that the Lord was God and that he was turning their hearts back. Fire fell and consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even dried up the water in the trench. The people fell facedown and declared that the Lord is God.

The water was not there to make the miracle easier. It made the answer unmistakable. Elijah had no reason to make the challenge smaller or easier to explain away.

When the rain finally came

After the fire, Elijah told Ahab that rain was coming. He went up the mountain to pray and sent his servant to look toward the sea. The servant returned six times with nothing to report. Elijah kept praying and sent him again. On the seventh trip, a small cloud appeared, no bigger than a hand. Soon the sky darkened, the wind rose, and heavy rain fell.

The story later turns from a public miracle to Elijah's private exhaustion. Jezebel threatened him, and he ran into the wilderness, afraid and worn down. God met him there with food and rest. At Mount Horeb, Elijah experienced wind, an earthquake, and fire, but the Lord was not in those things. Afterward came a gentle whisper. God was still present when the spectacle had passed.

Trust for the next step

Elijah's story holds together bold action and quiet dependence. He prayed for rain, kept looking when the first six checks showed nothing, and trusted God in a lonely wilderness after the crowds were gone.

That is why Scripture calls us to pray continually and to ask, seek, and knock. We do not always know how the answer will come or how long we will wait. We can bring our needs to a good Father, keep seeking his kingdom, and take the next step of faith he puts in front of us.