Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, November 2, 2025
by Rev. Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
A Reflection for All Saints Sunday
Main Idea: The way God cares for Elijah speaks to our own moments of loss and grief, guiding us to how we can care for others in our midst.
Elijah had just worked a great wonder, defeating the priests of Baal in a contest to see whose God would answer prayer and immolate a bull. This should have been the culmination of his mission to end the worship of Baal in Israel, and yet Ahab and Jezebel are undeterred. All his zeal has not changed the fundamental reality: he remains the only prophet of God, and a hunted one at that. He goes out into the wilderness to confront his own failure by way of death.
While few us of have experienced this degree of grief, the sense of life’s futility and meaningless assails us in moments of death and makes us question the purpose of the struggle to live a life of costly discipleship. How God ministers to Elijah here echoes with how God ministers to us. Not as a distraction from the challenge or the journey but in service of it, God meets Elijah in food and drink, and in quiet whispers. Feels a little like a funeral, right? That is no accident. As much as we love a grand gesture and big miracle, what sustains faith in trying times is humble, daily care and patient, quiet presence. God has already showed Elijah that he can do wondrous things; now God shows Elijah that God is also present and active in the simple acts of life.
These passages not only help attune us to God in our midst, but they also help us see what saintly living looks like. We are prone to think of saints as those who have lived heroic lives, knights of faith who suffered persecution, deprivation, or radical self-emptying in the name of God. All of the above is indeed saintly as a sign of God’s grace and mercy, but so too are the lives of those saints, “unpraised and unknown,” as the old hymn says, who through simple living “bear someone’s cross or shoulder their own.” It is not a particular life which makes one a saint, but the grace of God which has met us in the particulars of life, whatever they may be. Our efforts do not make us saints, for we remain in this life broken and lowly people in need of grace. As grace filled people, we find the courage to live in how God has lived for us, and in this, God’s name is glorified.
