Shelf Life
Now it happened after many days that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, I Kings 18:1
Many Days – “Use by Jan 03-08.” That’s what it says on the carton of heavy cream in my refrigerator. Of course, if I really waited to use this liquid until January 3 of next year, the chances are that it would not smell too appealing. We all know that shelf life is limited. Products are only really good for a certain amount of time. After that, well, it’s into the garbage.
With that in mind, have you ever thought about your shelf life? I am quite sure that Elijah was thinking about his shelf life when he spent three years at the home of the widow of Zarephath. He started out with a bang. He proclaimed that there would be no rain until he said so, and behold, the land dried up. The king sent soldiers everywhere to find him. He was at the top of the “most wanted” list. God sent him to Zarephath, a little back-water village outside of Israel, to the home of a nobody. And there he sat – for three years – on the shelf.
Yamim rabim is the Hebrew expression. It’s worth remembering. You could translate this, “many long days,” or “longer and longer days.” That’s the part we identify with so frequently – the long days of waiting, sitting on the shelf, not doing anything that appears to make any sense; a flurry of action at the beginning, and then – shelf time. All the while we’re wondering, “God, why did you put me here, in this ignominious no-place? I’m ready to go, God. Just point the way and I’ll charge forward.” But day after day, week after week, God says nothing. Many long days must pass before the word of the Lord is manifested again.
Patience may be a virtue, but it does not come easily, does it? We’re right with God. We’re able to serve. We’re willing. But often God seems quite content to let us sit. Perhaps we need a different metaphor for God’s aging actions. We’re not heavy cream with a January date stamped on the carton. We’re much more like a good wine that needs to mellow for years before it is just right. All that time we think we’re just sitting on the shelf, God is smoothing out the taste and the aroma, reducing the acidity and replacing it with a bouquet of flavor; something that could never have happened in the field, but only in the bottle – on the shelf.
Elijah experienced God’s aging process. Three years on the shelf. He was fortunate. It took Moses forty years. Even Jesus spent seventeen or eighteen years in obedience before His ministry began. You see, God never rushes a good thing. He is the epitome of patience. Four hundred years for the promise to Abraham to be fulfilled. Four thousand years for the Messiah to arrive. So, what are a few days or weeks of shelf life to God? The shelf life issue is our problem, not His. If you serve a God Who is sovereign over space and time, then shelf life is just mythology. Look at the vineyard. All those grapes must be harvested, crushed, bottled and aged before they are ready to serve. Just wait. God knows what He is doing.
