What I Learned After Hiding From God For The Summer.

And What We Get Wrong About Rest.

By Harrison Morey Oct 1, 2026

This was me most of the summer.

I told my Dad I didn’t want to join a family prayer.

My wife, Heather and I were just recently in one of the hardest seasons of our lives. One terrible life surprise after another. Just to give you the highlight reel:


A popped tire on a brand-new car. My wife broke her foot and spent two months on crutches, barely able to walk. We went a month and a half without a refrigerator, dealt with multiple plumbing problems, unexpected home repairs, medical bills, a $700 vet bill, uncertainty around her job, difficult family diagnoses, and some challenging transitions at my own job. The same brand new car’s battery dying over and over. Probably more things I can’t remember but our bank account does.


It’s been quite the summer.


My wonderful, very supportive, Godly parents came over a few weeks back in the midst of all this, and they prayed over us, over our house. It felt good. We really needed it.


My Dad finished up, and asked me if I wanted to pray during that moment as well. I usually do.


But this time, I couldn’t do it.

And I didn’t know why.

Part of me knew I didn’t feel worthy. We hadn’t been to church, or gone out anywhere, really, because of Heather’s foot. At home, I hadn’t been reading the Bible, or praying by myself, or with Heather. We weren’t serving, giving, anything.


I wasn’t even listening to worship music. I couldn’t do any of it.


I’ve preached about how to go through hard times before. How to hold fast during hard seasons. I’ve preached the dark night of the soul. Paul’s thorn, Job’s life, Elijah’s breakdown, Jonah’s meltdown, Jesus’ exhaustion, Rizpah’s grief. Romans 8 - how the suffering of our present time isn’t worth comparing to the joy that’s coming. James 1, count it all as joy when you go through trials. Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. That last one has even been my lock screen this entire time.


So on top of doing the ‘wrong things’, I felt like a hypocrite.


Part of me was angry at God. We try to do everything right—why let all this happen to us? I know the theology. That suffering doesn't mean God isn’t there, but knowing that didn't make the suffering feel any better.


I know all the right answers.

I know all the right things to do.

I know all the right Scriptures.

I know all the right Worship songs.

And I didn’t do or use any of them. For weeks. The whole summer.


Instead, I listened to a lot of Radiohead. And kept my head down, doing what I could to manage everything in my own hands.


By the way, my wife has been absolutely amazing through all of this. I couldn’t ask for a stronger, kinder, gentler, more faithful and resilient partner. I was definitely the problem here.


To confess one more thing: I did what, according to Barna, 4/10 of Christians do today, and asked Chat GPT to be my pastor for a moment. I have lots of good, wise, spiritual people I could have reached out to. But I didn’t want to talk to God about this, let alone another human. So I gave GPT a prompt, and then went through a more unfiltered version of what you just read.


And the first thing it told me was:

“You sound tired.”

Huh.


I honestly hadn’t considered that.


I don’t think it’s a great, healthy practice to use AI for spiritual counseling, but it did break my thought patterns enough for God to have a higher volume in my mind for a moment.


That brought me to 1 Kings 18-19. I’ve read it dozens of times before. You might have too.


Prophet Elijah finishes one of the craziest, most vibrant stories of God’s power in the Bible, the showdown on Mount Carmel against the cultists of Baal. Fire from heaven called down. The cultists get slain. Immediately after, Elijah runs. We can’t get into the whole details and keep a decent word count, but the short version is Elijah changes directions, he heads into the wilderness and hides because he’s afraid of the evil rulers of his time. Some estimates say he fled a distance of 120 miles away. Finally, he takes shelter under a tree and he asks God to kill him. He’s clearly depressed, broken, exhausted, lonely, and drained.


After the last few weeks, that sounded familiar to me. We’ll come back to Elijah later.

When your life is a mess, how do you think God sees you?

I know, deep down, that God embraces our mess. I've encouraged people with that exact phrase in countless prayers, preaching, and talks.


But it is much easier to tell someone else to let God embrace their mess than it is to give Him yours.


I knew I was a mess.

I knew I was frustrated, angry, scared, ashamed, and drained.

But I didn’t know I was tired.


I think the hardest part is I know how well God takes care of His sheep. How good He is. How warm He is. How close He gets to us while we suffer. But I was running. Avoiding Him. I didn’t want Him.


I know 1 Corinthians 13. His love is patient. His love is kind.


Sometimes, I don’t want God to be patient or kind with me. There’s another version of God in my head. You might have this one too. The version of God where He sets harsh expectations. He told us to take up our cross daily, right? So isn’t that what all our troubles are?

Our theology is: Follow the faith blueprint or suffer more. Your depression is due to a lack of prayer. Your life not going your way is due to a lack of Holy motivation you should have had downloaded in you when you said yes to Jesus.

We take all those unkind sentiments and more, and call it sanctification.

Your suffering is your fault. God blesses the successful and punishes the failures.


That’s the assertion behind a lot of how we view ourselves and others. It’s why in John 9, Jesus’s own disciples see a blind man and ask Jesus, whose sin made a man blind? Was it his, or his parents?


It’s why you think other people are close to God from how they look on social media and Sunday mornings, and hide and punish yourself in your head when you get home, because you know the truth of just how messed up and wretched you are.


When Elijah ran, hid, and asked God to just kill him, God responded first and foremost with good, hot food and fresh, cold water. He used angels to meet his physical needs before He even began to try and reset his mindset or spiritual posture. It’s another day or two before God says another word.

Even then, the next thing He says is with gentle concern:

“Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.”

That is a patient, kind love in action. It’s gentle.

Do you think God responds that way when you’re struggling?


How does God respond to our limits?


Does he not know when we are at our wits end? When life is too much to handle? When the surprises and people and circumstances and to-do lists and jobs and balancing our own needs and wants and those of people who depend on us are too much. How does God respond?

Care.

God’s care constantly catches me by surprise.


It shouldn’t. He wrote a lot about it.

“Cast your anxieties on the Lord, for he cares for you.”

“Look at the birds of the air, they neither gather into barns nor store their food, yet their heavenly father feeds them.”

“I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”


So. Much. Care.

Meanwhile, my first instinct is to wait for - or more accurately hide from, a lecture. A harsh correction that isn’t actually coming. For a critical voice that says ‘Be strong and courageous, be a man, lead, don’t you have faith?’


But God doesn’t do that to Elijah.

Instead, it's “Eat. This thing is too hard for you.”


After that gentle concerned statement, God says nothing more. Elijah stays in the woods. Eating. Seemingly doing ‘nothing.’


In fact, God lets him keep wandering for a while, and keeps providing for him. It says God kept Elijah in His strength for over a month, 40 days and 40 nights, God doesn’t say another thing as Elijah wanders another 200 miles.


Think about that.


When we read the Bible, we can skip over the pauses in action there. 40 days and 40 nights. We know God’s response, and the next big action moment, is just a few verses down. But the space between those verses represents weeks of time in stillness and quiet closeness.

That might be one of the reasons we miss God’s care.

We rarely hold quiet moments anymore. We expect everything to be big, loud, large, and instant. As if every day is a Red Sea parting day, when Moses himself went through plenty of cold quiet desert nights. But that doesn’t stop us from thinking something is wrong with us if God isn’t constantly loud and life is constantly good.


Instead, God leads Elijah through a quiet, 200 mile, 40 day walk through the woods. No epiphanies. No grand moments. Just His strength in the quiet.


The biggest thing that surprises me about the story is how slow God lets us move sometimes.


Where is Elijah going? Eventually he climbs the Mount of God. He finds a cave and sits in it.


It’s finally there, God makes a statement.


Instead of a correction, a lecture, a harsh word from the Almighty, He asks Elijah a patient, kind question.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”


Why would God ever need to ask a question? Because He doesn’t know the answer? No, we know that isn’t true.


God invites Elijah to have a conversation.


Because His love is patient. His love is kind. Annoyingly so, almost. I relate so much to Jonah, who is furious and indignant in the face of God’s mercy for Nineveh, and in a moment when God literally grew a tree to give him shade in the midst of his meltdown, his arrogant pouting, God asks the best question we never ask ourselves. “Do you do well to be angry?”

Another patient, kind gesture with a patient, kind question.


God’s presence carries a tone. But what is that tone? Harsh? Angry? Indifferent? Not here.


Elijah answers God’s question honestly. What is he doing here? Elijah answers with a list of every hard thing he’s done for God out of his effort. And the deepest struggles he is having: He is alone, and people want to kill him for what he’s done for God.


God answers. He tells Elijah to go outside and stand.


It says God’s presence passes by, bringing a massive wind, which tears apart a mountain.

Here we go. The angry, loud God. The harsh God that can cut a mountain.

But God wasn’t in the wind.

And then an earthquake, a thunderous sound that shakes up Elijah, but God wasn’t in the earthquake.

And then a blazing fire appears, something Elijah would have been familiar with, He just saw a fire like this on Mount Carmel a month ago. But it says God wasn’t in the fire.


God doesn’t roar in the divine spectacles like Elijah might have been expecting.


No. Instead. After all that, a still, small voice comes through. Elijah hears God’s low whisper, repeating His question. “What are you doing here, Elijah?”


There’s so much to unpack there. Too much for a post.


If God asked you that, how would it sound? Or if He told you “Eat, this is too hard for you.” How would that sound to you?

Have you ever asked, “How do I know God is speaking to me?

Frustratingly, there’s a hundred answers. And most of them are right. Read the Bible out loud. Get quiet and still. He speaks in dreams. Angels. Through confirmation of others. You know His voice from spending time with Him.


I’ll tell you how I know when God is speaking to me. And this might not work for you.

I have a terrible self-talk problem. Here’s an example. My first instinct one morning when I woke up late to take the trash out before the garbage truck arrived was “Get up and go take the trash out, you mother******* idiot.”

It came through my mind as naturally as breathing.

I know, I’m working on it. Especially the cursing part.

The point is, I am immensely harsh on myself. That’s part of why I have that other version of God in my head, the harsh one. The judgmental one, the cruel one. Whose mood ranges from indifferent to demanding. But that’s not God.


Instead, on a rare, rare occasion. When I finally get quiet and alone. Know what I hear?

You are doing a lot.

Would you let me carry you?

You need to slow down.


God uses a still, small voice. A close one. A low whisper.


Elijah lived an empowered life of crazy moments we can never compare to, of life threatening danger, where he performed miracles and experienced supernatural event after supernatural event.

And God is saying: Elijah. I am not just the loud distant moments that strike fear and awe. I am also right next to you, close enough to whisper in your ear.

Here’s what I learned.

Sometimes you're the prophet on a mountaintop, and God is going to show up in a big way because of your faithfulness. Not just that- sometimes you need to be on the mountaintop, warring against the world. God’s next words with Elijah on the mountain are about what to do next. His next assignments bring him out of a season of rest and into a season of purpose.


Sometimes you have a lot of work to do.


Other times, you just need to be cared for.


Unfortunately, those seasons where you need to be cared for might last longer than a day or two. It could be 40.


God doesn't shame Elijah for needing time. He feeds him, lets him sleep, walks with him, listens to him, speaks in a gentle voice, and only then gives him his next assignment.


What a blessing it is, to have gone through a hard season, and know that despite your best effort to hide, run, fight, and curse… God held you strong anyway. And He was kind and gentle with you. And has more for you after.

It took me 3 months to finally pray again.


When I got in my car earlier this morning and once again, it wouldn’t start. Every warning light and alarm flashed and beeped and yelled at me. I turned it off. And actually prayed.

“I’m tired.”

I said it with an ache. I said it louder, again. I said it one more time, tired and angry. I didn’t even address it. No ‘Dear Heavenly Father’, no ‘Lord.’ Not even ‘God’.

But I think He knew it was addressed to Him.


Because His quiet, gentle love came to meet me there. A still small voice finally broke through my self loathing and running away.

I know you are tired.

Maybe you aren’t terrible. Maybe you’re just tired.

Sleep. Eat. Rest.

Remember that your seasons of rest are seasons where God cares for you.

Remember that your season, every season, is one you walk with God.

When you’re exhausted, angry, hungry, lonely, tired. Pray the shortest prayer you can possibly manage. And let yourself be guarded by Jesus. Let Him whisper. Let Him carry you.

He might have words for you in a still small voice.


Sometimes faithfulness doesn't look like doing more. Sometimes faithfulness looks like letting God care for you until you're ready to move again.