Elijah
had just won a decisive victory over the pagan gods Baal and Asherah at Mount
Carmel. In a great display, he had called the fire of God down from heaven in
front of the people thereby showing people who the true God was. In the
aftermath of his display, he had killed around a thousand of the prophets of
these false gods. He should have been feeling good with himself and confident
in the power of God. However, shortly after this great display, he receives a
message from the Queen Jezebel who threatens to kill him like he killed the
prophets of the heathen gods she worshipped. Instead of being confident of the
God who had just displayed such naked and awesome power on his behalf, Elijah
runs away from the threat of the queen, abandoning his servant along the way.
Elijah
ends up in the wilderness in Beersheba in the country of Judah, far from
Jezebel’s reach and falls down tired, asking God to take his life. While
resting under a juniper tree, God sends an angel twice to feed Elijah for the
journey ahead. After a long journey, God catches up with Elijah in a cave. God
then asks Elijah what he’s doing there in the cave. Just like he asked Adam
where he was after he had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
and his eyes were opened and he knew he was naked, God was not asking Elijah a
question he didn’t already know the answer to. Elijah then launches into a sob
story of how he had been quite zealous on God’s behalf and everybody had
abandoned God and he was the only one left serving God. God then tells him to
stand on the mountain so that he could speak with him. While on the mountain, a
strong wind, an earthquake and a fire pass by Elijah. The Bible says that while
these things passed by him, God was not in it. It was until a still, small voice
was heard that he heard God’s voice. When God spoke, it was to ask the same
question he had asked at first. Again Elijah answered God with the same story
of victimisation and abandonment he had rehearsed earlier. After this God gives
him instructions on the people to anoint and to prepare himself for death.
At
times we all go through circumstances that debilitate us. Circumstances like
anxiety, depression, fear and other negative emotions come to test us and to
try our faith and belief in God. They come to taunt us, to make us doubt the
presence of God and his saving power. They want us to forget the numerous God
has come through for us. Ultimately, they want us to confess negatively and
speak words that agree with the circumstances we are going through. While the
Bible says God was not in the wind, earthquake or fire, I believe those
phenomena were sent by God to remind Elijah of his awesome power that was
available to Elijah if only he could correctly discern what was happening. Instead
of seeing God’s power at work, all Elijah could see were his present
circumstances (which were temporary) and he therefore could not see the power
of God. The Bible urges the weak to declare that he is strong and for the poor
to declare that he is rich because of what the Lord has done. This is about
recognising that while we go through things in life, the things we go through
do not define us. What defines us is what God says we are.
God
didn’t want Elijah to die. I believe he still had a lot for Elijah to do.
However there was nothing God could do because of what Elijah believed about
himself. Even after seeing a display of the awesomeness of God, he still could
not look past his circumstance to lay hold of God’s goodness and grace by
faith. Hence he died. We live in a fallen world and most and generally it’s a
terrible place to live. But God want’s us not to look at the world with natural
eyes, seeing those things that are temporary. He wants to look with eyes of
faith to those things that are eternal, resting our hope and trust in him.
JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO
published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers and LOST, BUT FOUND.
