After the fire, there was a tiny whispering sound…and the voice of the Lord was heard. One would have thought that with the prophets of Baal all having been killed and the people once again proclaiming the Lord as their God, everybody would be happy and Elijah’s problems would be over. Unfortunately for Elijah, this appears not to have been the case. His problems were far from over. When Ahab’s wife got to know that Elijah had orchestrated the slaughtering of the prophets of Baal, she swore to avenge their deaths by killing the prophet of God. This prompted Elijah to seek a hideout in the desert. Alone in the desert where he was exposed to all the discomforts of the wild, Elijah became overwhelmed with emotion. He did not know what to make of the turn of events (how good can be repaid by evil) and consequently asked the Lord to take his life. But because the Lord still had other plans for him, his request was not granted. Instead, he was led by the spirit to the mountain of God, Horeb, where God was kind enough to show the self to Elijah.
Elijah’s encounter with God at Horeb is reminiscent of the Exodus account of God’s revelation to Moses. But unlike the Exodus’ encounter, God’s presence was announced, not with fire or thunderstorms but in a soft gush of wind. It was a revelation that was meant to have an assuring and encouraging effect on the prophet. After all the violence and turmoil that Elijah had gone through, it was just right that the Lord appears to him in calmness and quiet. While God used to make his presence known to the people of Elijah’s time through earthquakes, strong winds, thunderstorms, and fires, God chose to speak to Elijah in a quite different mode on this day. A lot had been going on in Elijah’s life of late, and God knew that coming to Elijah in any other way other than in stillness was not going to be of much help. Elijah needed to hear the Lord speak the words of assuring comfort to him. To hear what God had to say, he needed to be removed from the chaos that surrounded him. There was no better place where he could be alone with God than in stillness and quiet, 
Like Elijah, there will be times in our lives when chaos and turmoil will overwhelm us. Such will be the times when we will need to hear God whisper in our ears words of comfort and encouragement. But God will not risk having us fail to hear him speak to us by coming to us at inopportune times or in inopportune ways (such as chaos or loud noises). God will always wait for the turmoil in our lives to quiet down before speaking to us and giving us direction. For it is in the calmness found in the depths of our hearts that God does speak to us.