Before anything else is said... yes I am procrastinating, unfortunately :(

But not entirely - been reading a lot of scholarly articles regarding the book of Kings as research for my essay and particularly love a comment by Satterthwaite on Elijah so I shall quote at length:

"Elijah, who has expected a swift, decisive victory against Baal, is told that events will not follow such a course. A partial answer to the question why it is hard to discern a pattern in the events of 2 Kings 2-8 is surely to be found in this chapter, which represents YHWH's coming judgement on Ahab's line and Baal's followers as like a 'gentle whisper' rather than earthquake or fire (vv. 11-12), suggesting that it will proceed in ways that will at times be almost undetectable. Similarly, YHWH's command to anoint Hazael, Jehu and Elisha implies both that judgement will be protracted ... and that it will proceed on a number of fronts ... Might we not have expected a long and complex sequel?"

As it was nearly 3000 years ago so it is today, perhaps even worse - we expect instant answers, instant enlightenment as to why things happen the way they do. We try to fit everything neatly into boxes to explain anything and everything, but at the end of the day there will always be things that continue to frustrate us, things that fester doubt in us... Yet God in His grace does a beautiful thing by revealing things in the present which clarify the past (and sometimes the very recent past), and it does more than clarify - it is a source of constant joy and comfort and praise that God is in control and He works in mysteriously profound but abundantly wonderful and good ways :)

I guess this is something that I'm coming to see more and more, even when there are days that seem bleak and endlessly frustrating and pointlessly painful, with retrospective wisdom it's part of a beautiful tapestry and there is that anticipation to the day when all will be revealed ^^