An Empty Easter (Renee Returns!)

Editor’s Note: An Empty Easter is Founder Renee Fisher’s return! Thank you Renee for this guest post! Remember, Divas, submissions are open INDEFINITELY 🙂

“Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life…and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.’”

1 Kings‬ ‭19‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭ESV

Elijah didn’t have the strength or the patience to continue. He thought his life was over. So he ran to an empty cave and asked God to die.

“God has a different read on the whole situation. He says, ‘Great! You have now finally left behind all the external trappings that just get in the way on the spiritual journey. You are starting to become empty enough—empty of your reliance on yourself and empty to those things that satisfy only briefly—to begin hungering for a more substantive experience of my presence.’”

Can you imagine the wind, earthquake, and fire weren’t enough to satisfy Elijah’s deepest hunger?

Elijah had just called fire down from heaven. It was a God-sized harvest before his very own eyes. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Elijah had just hacked the 450 prophets of Baal to pieces. He was spent physically and spiritually.

All it took was one death threat by Jezebel to send him running for his life.

Friend, what are you running from? Sometimes the very season that threatens your life becomes the door into the divine presence of God, to hear His voice and receive what you need for the journey ahead.

Like Elijah, maybe you need to be honest with God. He already knows what’s in your heart, even if we don’t.

Like Jesus, His sweat poured out like blood to Father God before going to the cross to defeat sin, death, and shame. His body was laid in an empty tomb to prove that after death comes life (see my last post on Devotional Diva on this topic here).

What about you? If God were to ask you the question, “What are you doing here,” how would you answer?

“We, like Elijah, must walk across the emptiness of the desert ‘out there’ to arrive at the mouth of the cave that is the emptiness ‘in here.’ But this is a brave thing to do.”

Since I last wrote for Devotional Diva, God brought the biggest harvest ever for myself and my husband. Many many years after a miscarriage, we had a healthy baby girl. I also published another book, “Soul Gardening” that this devotional is adapted from.

Our daughter is now one year and a half. God has used motherhood to empty me of every prop, hat, or accolades I’ve previously relied on. It’s been excruciating and humbling to say the least.

I’ve found myself—yet again—at the mouth of an empty cave waiting for God’s still small voice.

This Easter, I hope whatever empty spaces and places you find yourself in that You’ll be able to find God—like Elijah—waiting for you there!

The good news is, you’re still alive, and it’s not too late to experience the empty tomb because Jesus is alive!

Dear Winter Jesus, Thank You for the story of Elijah in the Old Testament. Thank You that Your Word still speaks today. Help me to see myself in Elijah’s story and in his pain and running away. Help me to see that it is never too late to find You—even if it means I’m stuck in a cave of my own making. Set me free today, in Jesus’s name. Help me make it through the chaos and confusion to hear Your gentle whisper. Whisper to my heart and expose the lies so that I can speak the truth even if it hurts. Show me the path home. I want to be found by You. I don’t want to give up. I want to keep living, make it through this dark season, and dream again. Amen.

Renee Fisher

Author, Wife + Mama to a Miracle Rainbow Baby
Quad Cities Natural Light Portrait & Nature Photographer