A little over 8 years ago, my friend and I were preparing for an exam. She had hers a day before mine. After her exam, we had a discussion and she told me how simple she thought her exam was. There is a very difficult section of the exam that requires you to speak quite elaborately about a subject unpremeditated in a foreign language. For that section, she excitedly narrated how she picked a very simple topic, one she had rehearsed several times during classes. We both gave God thanks anticipating flying colors.

As you would expect, that call boosted my morale, and I began to think about how I also would have the exam easy and also rehearse how the speaking prompt I would get would be something I had practiced before. Her story gave me hope but beyond hope I was expecting the same testimony and the same narrative. Of course, God wasn't having that, right then, in my heart, I heard the phrase, grace works differently for different people. That was my cue to stop daydreaming and continue preparing.

I'm sure you know where this story is going. I got to the exam hall the next day, I didn't find the exam cheap, and my speaking prompt also wasn't what I had rehearsed before that day but what I really loved about my exam was the welcoming ambiance of my exam invigilator, who happened to be one of our class instructors and whose calm demeanor was really helpful as I patiently spoke through the task I was given. Glory to God, we both passed excellently, in addition to the preparation, God's grace was at work but we both had different stories to tell.

In 1st Kings 19, after fleeing from Jezebel, Elijah complained to God that he was the only one left serving God and he was about to be rewarded for his service with death in the hands of a treacherous woman. God's response to him was to stand on the mountain to speak to him. That mountain Elijah stood on was Mount Sinai. You would recall that Mount Sinai was also where God met Moses and the children of Israel about two months after they left Egypt (Exodus 19).

Recounting the encounter with God and the children of Israel, Hebrews 12 explained it was very loud and vivid, it burned with fire, smoke and blackness, dark and thick clouds, thunderings, lightning flashes, with the sound of a trumpet! In short, it was a terrifying sight and the children of Israel couldn't bear it. Elijah must have probably heard the story about the encounter on Mount Sinai, so when God asked him to go and stand on that same mountain, he was looking for God to come in the way he was probably pre-conditioned to or because of what he had heard. He was looking for God in the noise, in the strong wind, in the loudness, in the quaking!

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