The Whirlwind and the Whisper

Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind: 

   “Who is this darkening counsel 
    with words lacking knowledge?”  (Job 38:1-2, CEB version) 

The Lord said, “Go out and stand at the mountain before the Lord. The Lord is passing by.” A very strong wind tore through the mountains and broke apart the stones before the Lord. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake. But the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord wasn’t in the fire. After the fire, there was a sound. Thin. Quiet. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his coat. He went out and stood at the cave’s entrance. (1 Kings 19:11-13a)   

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 a.m. on Sunday, May 26, I sat on my landlord’s couch, staring blankly at the Bible on my lap. On the big screen television in front of me, we were just starting to get glimpses of the damage all around us, though the sun had not come up yet to see the fullness of the destruction.  I had just made the call to have an online only worship service, and I would run it solo. I might be the only one in the service, at least from our area, because while I was up on a farm on a hill between Bentonville proper and Bella Vista that had generator power and internet, practically no one else around us did. So I would go live at 9 a.m. and say something. To someone. Somewhere. 

What was I going to say? 

What do you say in the shocking aftermath of the tornado that hit Decatur to our west and turned out to be the largest funnel ever to touch down in Arkansas at almost 2 miles across, or after the tornado that meandered down the main drag in Rogers to our east and tore businesses and homes to shreds, or after the funnel that hung over 2/3rds of Bentonville for what seemed like 15 minutes and apparently ripped every large or old tree right out by the roots all over town?  

I prayed for God’s guidance, for God’s words, for God’s wisdom, and was sure that I was headed for the Psalms to find a lament, when I opened that blessed Bible to Job 38.   

How did I miss the Psalms?!?!?! They are in the middle of the Bible and the largest book in the whole thing!  NO, I had to turn to Job, and not just any part of Job, but the part where God shows up in a whirlwind! 

But I also knew the Spirit wanted me to sit right there and sink into the passage. I would have much preferred to sink into the bed in the other room, but that was not my privilege for the morning. Wrestling with God on behalf of my people was. 

 In times like this we have big questions. And sometimes we say careless things, like “God was watching out for me.” But what I know is that in tornadoes, the people in houses who didn’t get hit were praying. And the people who were in houses that did get hit were also praying. Times like these cause us to wonder where God is in the midst of tragedy. And that is exactly what the Book of Job is confronting – the capricious nature of life and loss.  

Just before this passage, one of Job’s “friends,” Elihu, who is late on the scene, is calling Job and the other friends out. He is proclaiming the almighty power of God, and that God is so far beyond us that we can never even approach God. God controls all things, including tornadoes, and we all should just sit on our dungheaps with our ashes and boils and trust in the Lord. 

And then the Lord shows up within the whirlwind, and basically said, “You all are idiots.”   

God then does acknowledge God’s own power and our inability to see the way God does. But that is not the point. Of course we can’t see like God... because we are not God! But God is not interested in us being God. God is interested in us being us. And God is interested in being in relationship with us. In loving us through everything. And no matter what we go through, God will not abandon us. God will carry us through. God will be with us. In everything. 

Even in a whirlwind. 

The beautiful thing about the Book of Job is that God shows up. Job goes through horrific tragedy. But God does not walk away and leave Job to his fate. God shows up. And God shows up exactly in the way Job experienced tremendous loss. Job lost his family when a wind blew the house apart around them, and then God showed up in a whirlwind – not as a vicious taunt, but to show Job that even in his hour of great loss, God was within that moment, seeking to stand alongside Job and pull him out through hope in something beyond that loss.  

That's what I shared as I spoke into the void, not sure that any of my people even could hear my words. But sure someone would hear the words – someone who would need to hear them. And maybe my people wouldn’t hear them that day, but in the days to come. In the days when they would catch their breath. In the days when they would sit down in shock and try to pull themselves together. When the roar of the whirlwind would have subsided for a moment, and they could finally hear in the stillness. When they could hear the whisper. 

God shows up both ways – in the whirlwind and in the whisper. God does not bring the whirlwind that destroys Job’s family, and God is not the source of the destructive wind that Elijah experiences. But God is within those moments and shows up within them in ways that speak into our stun, our fear, our loss.  

As the weeks unfolded around recovery, and especially in that first week when we were in such shock and need, I heard God’s whirlwind and whisper over and over. God’s whirlwind was in the roar of the chainsaws, a chorus that we still hear in our area weeks later. God’s whirlwind was in the pounding fists of young men as they tried to break down a door to get to their 90 year old neighbors, who had in fact slept through the storm. God’s whirlwind was in the volunteers who poured into the area to clear streets. God’s whirlwind was in the sounds of sirens on emergency vehicles carrying people to safety. God’s whirlwind was in the places of refuge that suddenly sprung up to provide cool air conditioning or internet for work and communication or just community to swarm around us. God’s whirlwind was in the cranes and the trucks and the teams pulling trees off houses and away from streets and restoring power for a world that had temporarily gone dark.  

And God’s whisper was in the small ding of text notifications as over and over I would receive a text of a need and the next text would be someone offering to fill that need. God’s whisper was in the little girl born early in the midst of the recovery, with a sweet soft whisper of a cry (but a whirlwind of a spirit). God’s whisper was in the drive thru line inspiration to buy someone working overtime a lunch. God’s whisper was in a bar conversation that linked two sources of help together to help even more.  

And God’s whisper was in the moon that shone through the whisps of clouds an hour after the storm turned lives upside down. God was in the peace. God was in the calm.

And God was within the calamity. Not as the source of the destruction, but as the force that countered it. In all the loud and quiet ways. In all the ways that love moves among us – as the whirlwind, and the whisper. God is in it all.  God is in it all.

If you want to contribute to the work going on at First United Methodist Church of Bentonville, where Michelle is the pastor, visit fumcbentonville.org

If you want to give to disaster recovery, visit umcmission.org and give to UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief. 100% of what you give toward disaster recovery goes to that work. And our people can attest - they really are on the ground helping right away, and they are staying to continue that work.