These are the days of Elijah

THESE ARE THE DAYS OF ELIJAH                                                                                                                As I was sat social distancing, on the top of a hill recently, (my dog was much more than 2 metres away from me!!) there was a sense of warmth, beauty and calmness in this crazy time that we are living…….yet there were no sounds except the song of the birds; no aeroplanes in the sky; no sound of traffic, no people passing by. A quiet eeriness, and a feeling that although the world was at a standstill, God was still here.                              

Because the world was at a standstill, I could hear God more clearly. God was still God. He was still here even though nobody else was …….we are being stripped bare but God was still here and he was showing himself through his creation

And then the words came into my head: “Here on this earth these are the days of Corona” then straightaway, ‘These are the days of Elijah’  I took out my phone, the only link with human kind I had for an hour and a half, (my children say I should always carry it!) and found the song:

These are the days of Elijah                                                   
Declaring the word of the Lord,                                              
And these are the days of Your servant, Moses                      
Righteousness being restored                                                                                           

These are the days of great trials                                          
Of famine and darkness and sword                                          
Still we are the voice in the desert crying                              
Prepare ye the way of the Lord !

Behold He comes, riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun, at the trumpet’s call
Lift your voice, (it’s) the year of Jubilee
Out of Zion’s hill, salvation comes

And these are the days of Ezekiel
The dry bones becoming as flesh;
And these are the days of Your servant David
Rebuilding a temple of praise

And these are the days of the harvest
Oh, the fields are as white in Your world
And we are the labourers in Your vineyard
Declaring the word of the Lord!

This time now, more evidently than ever for me, is for Righteousness to be restored; for us as Christians to be those voices in the desert bringing a cry of hope and salvation and rebuilding a Temple of praise, not particularly in our churches, for we cannot do that at the moment but in peoples’ lives, in our communities and ultimately in the world.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Linda Dytham  March 2020