1 Kings 18: 27 At noon Elijah began to make fun of them. "Pray louder!" he said. "If Baal really is a god, maybe he is thinking, or busy, or traveling! Maybe he is sleeping so you will have to wake him!"

This is the second time I have read this scripture within a week or so. Hear something once and you might forget it, but the second time it starts to stick in your mind. Elijah is the prophet of the Lord. God sent him to meet the king and Elijah challenged the prophets of the false God, Baal, to pray to him and make him bring rain, as there had been a drought. And they prayed and prayed, worshipped, cut themselves, and... what do you think? Right! Nothing happened. But then Elijah called on the true God of Israel and did what He said, and guess what? Right! The rain came, proving that the God of Israel exists and loves the people of Israel.

My God is an awesome God. He answers prayers. I was thinking about the "idols" we can have in our lives: people we love, our material things, our car... basically anything we put before the Lord. These things can never answer our prayers (although they might be an answer to prayer.) We cannot expect people or things or hobbies or money to fulfill the longing that was placed in us from the existence of man, a longing to know that there is something bigger and better than us. A longing to know that we really were created to be just who we are, that we were created to love and give to others, that we were created to be loved and be in relationship with the God of the universe. Do you notice how often we expect those things to fulfill us though? I know I do it all the time. And part of that is just because there is not enough time in the day to fit everything in. But... this is when we have to get rid of the distractions and allow God to multiply our time. We plan Him into our day, giving Him the glory and honor He deserves (and He created us to give Him) and He will surely show us that He does not sleep on the job, that He hears every little thing we say to Him and that He loves us beyond our comprehension.