This is the day the
Lord has made. His name excellent around the corner and around the
globe. He is Majestic and Mighty, and yet Merciful. He blessed
us with a summer-like day yesterday. I spent some time at the local Civic
center hanging out with neighbors and friends who gather there every day.
It was a gorgeous day. I spent part of the day strolling around the
"City Centre", interacting with fellow townsfolk. It is
interesting to meet people with fascinating life stories. It is
refreshing to listen to people, hearing how the Lord of life comes into
the dailiness of life in revealing the wonders of His Grace and marvels
of His Love. The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday evening
gathering for fellowship and study.
I
love to read the stories and testimonies of the Heroes of the faith who are
depicted in the Bible. All the heroes of the faith were frail and
fragile like us. Their lives mingled with faith and doubt, as do
all of ours. They were pilgrims like us, going forward two steps and
three steps back. Elijah was probably the most celebrated and revered of
all Old Testament prophets. He lived during a time when people were chasing
after false gods, worshiping idols, and dabbling in all kinds of pagan and
occult things. God chose Elijah to be His spokesperson, His
representative, His prophet to those people in those times. Our God
empowered him to call for rain to cease for three years…and then for rain
to start up again simply by voicing the words. During a famine, he
touched a jar of flour, and miraculously that jar never went empty. He
touched a jug of oil, and it never ran dry. He raised a young boy from
the dead, one of the few people God used to raise someone from the dead other
than Jesus.
The
climax came at a place called Mount Carmel, where Elijah went head-to-head
(think the cultural climax of the day or the Super Bowl of conflict) with 50
prophets of Baal. It was a dramatic showdown. God gave a great
victory to Elijah on Mt. Carmel. The powers of Baal
and Jezebel's prophets were trounced and annihilated completely. It
was a great day of Triumph that the Lord displayed and demonstrated. As
we would imagine, King Ahab was none too pleased as to how the day went.
His wife Jezebel wasn't either, and she was the real power in
the kingdom, the real source of evil.
Jezebel,
whose name is now used as a euphemism for evil, treachery, and deceit,
sent a simple message to Elijah: "You're a dead man." "Elijah was afraid and ran for his life… He came to a broom
tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough,
Lord,' he said. 'Take my life'…Then he lay down under the tree and fell
asleep" (1 Kings 19:3-5).
The
Good News is that when we are drained and exhausted, and feel
overwhelmed, our God as revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord ministers to us
through the Holy Spirit. It is written "All at once an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and
eat.' He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked
over hot coals and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down
again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and
said, 'Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.' So he got up
and ate and drank" (1 Kings 19:5b-8a).
I
love the scene. God sent an angel just to give him a meal. When the
angel said, "The journey is too much for you", it was not
condemnation but compassion and empathy. That was God saying through the
angel, "I know. I know what you are going through. I know how
you're feeling. This has been overwhelming."
This is true for
all of us at times. We all have times when we say, "This
journey is too much for me". Our Lord is the Lord
of our journey. He understands, cares. God knew Elijah was tired
and hungry, so God fed him and then put him to bed.
Dr.
Martin Moore-Ede in his book, "The Twenty-Four Hour Society", describes a society that never rests, never sleeps, never
quits, never stops. He speaks about how, in all of his studies and
his research, he found the problem is that we are not built for the world we
have made because the world we have made ignores the law of our limits.
We need our rest, our sleep; and if we don't get it, our bodies will break
down, and our emotions will follow.
"The Lord said, to Elijah, 'Go out and stand on the
mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.'
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks
before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there
was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the
earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the
fire came a gentle whisper...[and] Elijah heard it" (1 Kings 19:11-12).
This
is one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible. In his depressed,
discouraged, depleted condition, God showed Elijah exactly where to find
Him. It wasn't in the activity, the efforts, the "full court press". Essentially,
God said to Elijah, "You're going to find Me and hear Me in the quiet and
in the stillness. You haven't been going there much lately, and you're
wondering why you're feeling this way." God addressed Elijah's
physical condition, tended to him, told him to rest. Then God spoke to
his spiritual condition, told him to quiet himself and let his soul catch up.
Our
Lord can be found in the the wind, earthquakes or fire— noise, busyness,
activity and speed of our lives. Praise the Lord He is often found
in the stillness, the quiet, the whisper, in the silent movement of His Spirit
on the waters of our souls.
We
have the kind of God who knows when the journey is too much for us, who
knows we are weak, who knows we are just dust, who does not get mad at us when we
collapse before the finish line. He is there all time with us to pick us
up and infuse us with fresh Grace to finish the race WELL.
In Jesus
our Eternal Contemporary.
Brown.
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