Greg Ford - I've had Enough, Lord
Um, we did 15 weeks to start the year, which we called «Cover to Cover,» and it was really zoomed out. I mean, at one point, we did 21 epistles in one weekend. Okay, we covered a lot of ground, and a lot of that was kind of looking at portions of Scripture from about 10,000 feet. And now what we’re going to do is the opposite for these next three weeks. We’re going to zoom in; we’re going to take a closer look at some specific stories and verses that really build on the foundation we laid in those first 15 weeks.
So that’s what we’re up to today. We are going to start in the book of First Kings, chapter 19, and I’m going to start reading in verse three. First Kings 19:3. If you don’t have a Bible with you, don’t worry; it’ll be up on the screen. It says, «Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die. 'I’ve had enough, Lord, ' he said. 'Take my life; I’m no better than my ancestors.'»
We’re zeroing in here on two verses where we have a guy who has hit an all-time low. He’s hit his pain threshold-emotionally, mentally, and in some ways, physically. He’s just really, really low, and he says, «I’ve had enough, Lord. Take me out.» If you’ve ever been that low, if you’ve ever been to that place where you feel completely empty and can’t see a path forward, you know that you don’t get there overnight and you don’t get there for no reason. So what we’re going to do today is start from this passage. We’ll first look back at how he got to this point, and then we’ll look ahead to see what happened from here. What’s the path forward? And if you’re here today and maybe these words have even come out of your mouth-"I’ve had enough, Lord. I can’t take it anymore"-and you’re in that place, boy, are you in the right place today!
So how did Elijah get this low? How did he get here? He’s introduced to us in chapter 17. What we just read was in chapter 19, and in chapter 17, Elijah just blows up on the scene. We don’t get a whole lot of backstory; we only really get his hometown. It says in First Kings 17:1, «Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab.» Who’s Ahab? Well, he’s the king. So Elijah shows up, and we don’t have any lineage. We have nothing other than he just shows up right in the king’s face and says to Ahab, «As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.» He shows up right in the king’s face.
Now, what’s happening here? Okay, little backstory. When the monarchy, or the kings of Israel, started with King Saul, he was the king that everybody wanted. He fit the profile that the nation was looking for in a leader, but he had a corrupted heart. You’re going to see the second king is David, who is a man after God’s own heart. He’s the king God wanted. After David is Solomon, well-known for his wisdom. You see a lot of his writings; he gives us many concise, wise sayings that go great with your coffee and donut in the morning to get you going for the day. But one of the realities about Solomon’s reign was that he introduced idolatry into the nation, and he really bought into the empire mentality. He drove the people hard, and yes, he made a lot of progress, building a lot of cool stuff, but he made alliances that were more than just economic; they became spiritual alliances where they introduced idolatry into their world.
We talked about this during «Cover to Cover» — why God had such beef with idolatry. It wasn’t just that He was worried that some other idol was going to get credit for the rainfall. It really got down to the fact that these were deep fakes of His character, and He’s not so shallow that someone else gets the credit, and it’s just going to fall apart. It really got down to the fact that these deep fakes would lead people into perverted, distorted theological views and beliefs, ultimately about God, and the practices connected to those beliefs were deep perversions causing a lot of pain, suffering, and confusion. So that’s why He said they had to get that stuff out.
Well, Solomon welcomed that in because, with it, came economic prosperity. They were able to do deals with other nations and things like that. So from there, after Solomon, a downfall begins. His son Rehoboam takes over, and Rehoboam is like his dad but worse. They end up in civil war. The books of First and Second Kings follow the northern kingdom, so you have a northern and a southern kingdom. Ahab is the seventh in line of the northern kingdom, and all the kings have gotten worse and worse. When it introduces Ahab in chapter 16, it says that he is the worst of all of them. They hit an all-time low as a nation. He marries a woman named Jezebel, who is a Phoenician priestess -essentially, she’s a priestess of Baal. So when she comes in, she brings Baal worship with her and puts to death the prophets of Yahweh. It’s just a really bad place.
So you have Elijah, who is a ball of fire-this guy isn’t scared of anybody. He gets right in the king’s face and declares that there’s going to be a drought. A few things are significant about that. First of all, a drought hits them much differently than it impacts us. When we have a drought, it just means our grass is going to be brown for a while. In their world, a drought means people die, right? It’s an existential threat. People aren’t going to get food and water, the crops aren’t going to grow, and so it’s literally like, you know, you may not live through it, depending on how long it lasts.
The second thing is that it affected their economy, too. Again, crops not only fed the citizens but were also part of what made their economy work. But the big part of this was that in their idolatry, Baal was seen as the god of storms. If you see any pictures or statues of Baal, he’s holding a lightning bolt in his hand. So he was seen not only as the god of war but also as the god of rain, which again meant economic prosperity and living agriculture. So when Elijah goes -or really, this drought is about Elijah taking a stand and saying, «Look, you guys are following this god,» and the fact that it keeps raining means you’re keeping this belief alive. What God is going to do is not have it rain, and then we’ll see what Baal is capable of.
So that’s kind of chapter 17. Chapter 18 is this unbelievable showdown; it’s one of the most dramatic chapters in the Bible. God speaks to Elijah and says, «Go tell Ahab I’m going to send rain after three years of drought.» So he goes to Ahab and says, «Ahab, God’s going to send rain, and we’re going to make sure everybody knows that Yahweh gets the glory.» So they call out this prime-time TV event-a showdown. «Bring everybody out! Bring the whole nation out! Bring your 450 prophets of Baal.» The 450 prophets of Baal show up to Mount Carmel, and it’s going down on Mount Carmel.
«Bring them all and get everybody out here!» Okay, everybody get out here! So they have a huge crowd of people; the nation is there to watch. Elijah, in all his boldness, goes one-on-450. One on 450! Bring it on; I want all the smoke! He says, «Look, here’s how we’re going to do it. We’re going to have you make a sacrifice to Baal; I’m going to have a sacrifice for Yahweh, and we’re going to set up the sacrifice, but we’re going to see who can bring the lightning.» Alright? Because we’re not going to light it; we’re going to let the gods-whoever is the real god — light it. So they set this up. «Tell you what, let’s flip a coin.» No, we don’t need to do that; you go first. You guys go ahead and go first.
So the prophets of Baal-there are 450 of them-they start doing all this stuff to try to make Baal act. They’re dancing around the altar, doing their rituals, and it’s like from morning to noon, nothing happens. And Elijah is feeling himself. He starts talking trash like, «You know, guys, you need to crank up the volume. I don’t think Baal can hear you! He doesn’t hear well!» Alright, so you’ve got to just get louder. «Come on, guys, get louder!» And they’re getting louder. Then he starts taunting them. «You know, maybe he’s taking a nap. You guys might need to wake him up.» He says a couple of crude things to them, right? You have to read the text to find out what he said. Alright? So he’s just having fun with this. And these guys, again, they get ugly; they start cutting themselves because their belief about Baal was that, you know, if he wasn’t acting, they needed to show how serious they were. So they’re literally mutilating themselves, and nothing happens.
So once they get done, Elijah says, «Alright, my turn now!» He pours water on the sacrifice as a drink offering, sets the thing up, steps back, and goes, «God, you don’t need me to beg you. You know who you are; do what you do!» And again, what is the sign for the god of storms? Baal is a lightning bolt. And God sends a lightning bolt-boom! Saying, «No! Baal is not who you think he is!» And he sends a lightning bolt that consumes the sacrifice. So it stinking worked! Elijah wins the day; I mean, he is validated like never before. God has been validated like never before. The nation bows their knee; they all cry out, «The Lord, Yahweh, is God! The Lord, Yahweh, is God!» They take these 450 prophets of Baal and put them to death. And then it gets even better because now God sends rain. So now clouds fill the sky; the rain comes, and people are saved in terms of now they’re going to be able to eat food. Now the economy is going to come back; now people aren’t going to have to die, and God has proven who He is, and everybody acknowledged it. You couldn’t get it wrong; it’s indisputable. Undisputed! God is who He says He is, and Baal has been exposed.
So Elijah-okay, this is the moment he dreamed about. This is the moment he’s been waiting for for three years; it went exactly according to plan. What he would have imagined happening is Ahab and Jezebel being driven out. They were going to do the same thing that Ahab and Jezebel did to their prophets -either kill them or drive them out. They were going to be done with them, and that’s what he expects. But, much to his chagrin, he’s going to find out that while he won the day, that was about it. All these people who bowed their knees and declared Yahweh to be God bowed their knees but didn’t have a change of heart. They went right back to who they were, and Jezebel and Ahab remained in power.
And so in First Kings 19:1, it says, «Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he killed the prophets with the sword.» So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, «May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely! If by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.» Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, now we’re right back to where we started. He left his servant there and went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and he came to a broom bush and sat down under it and prayed that he might die. «I’ve had enough, Lord,» he said. «Take my life; I’m no better than my ancestors.»
It’s interesting-if you’ve ever had something work and you could imagine it, you saw it done, and you had all the passion to drive it through, you took bold action, and it worked. Yet you thought when it worked there would be a different result on the back end, and it doesn’t happen like that. Now you find yourself sitting in the wilderness in the aftermath, trying to figure out, number one, what just happened, and number two, where do I go from here? Yeah, I just emptied the clip; I just spent all my passion on that. I thought for sure-I mean, in his mind, he thought what this nation needed was a showdown on Mount Carmel, Chapter 18, and if we display the power and the might of God in a way that no one can argue with, then that’s going to be the turning point. In his mind, he thought, «When this happens, everybody’s going to turn! How could anything else happen? How could you do it any differently?» Truth has been brought to light; you can’t argue with it-God just showed His power! Baal’s been exposed! But what he found was that even though they bowed a knee, the hearts weren’t changed.
So what he thought was going to be this crescendo moment of breakthrough, he realized was going to be a fight for the rest of his life. So he’s out here, and he’s like, «I don’t know what to think. I feel like a fool. I had the vision that drove me up to this point, kept me up late, and had me driving, driving, driving! And now it’s like I did all of that just to win the day. Just to have it like we win, and then it evaporates into thin air, and we’re right back to where we used to be.» So it’s in this moment that he is completely empty and exhausted. He has no vision, which is a new place to be for him because up to this point he’s been totally driven by vision. But now my vision didn’t play out the way I was sure it would. And in the aftermath, I’ve got to figure out where to go from here. This is why he hits a place so low that he cannot imagine a future that he would be as passionate about as the one he just lived. So he falls into despair and says, «You know, Lord, just take me now.»
So what’s the path forward, right? We know how we got to where we are. And for some of you, as I described this-even though it’s not apples to apples with Elijah-you have your own Mount Carmel. You have your own vision; you’ve lived your own life, and you’ve come to the place where you get to the back end of it, and you go, «All of that, and what difference did it even make? All we did was win the day. Where do I go from here?» So what’s the path forward? That’s what we’re going to look at.
So let’s go back to the text. He ends verse four by saying, «I’ve had enough. Take my life; I’m no better than my ancestors.» And then in verse five, it says, «Then he laid down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once, the angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat.'» He looked around, and there by his head was some 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.» Alright?
So what’s interesting here is it says an angel of the Lord. We’re not exactly sure what that means. It doesn’t describe the angel of the Lord; it doesn’t say it had wings or was glowing or celestial. The word for angel there is the word for messenger. It could have been a heavenly celestial being, or it could have just been somebody God sent. We don’t know that for sure, but we know it was someone sent by God. Notice that what happens here is he says, «Get up and eat,» and then he takes a nap. He eats, goes back to sleep, and then eats again. So he takes two naps and has two meals. Okay, this is not what I would have expected from a messenger from God or an angel, right? It’s like if I’m in a place where I’m like, «I’ve had enough, Lord! I can’t take it anymore! Just take me out!» Right? You are in the valley of despair, and God sends some sort of messenger or angel to you. You’re expecting more than «Here’s some food and take a nap and then do it again.» I’m expecting a magic carpet ride; I’m expecting some sort of existential experience, something metaphysical. Okay? Something in the clouds; you know, maybe I get to float up into outer space!
And maybe I get to… you know, isn’t that… I mean, you send an angel! I’m low here! And the angel, the first thing it does is say, «Take care of your body.» See, the path forward starts with prioritizing health. Don’t just glide past this. Don’t just glide past this. Often what happens when we are impacted mentally and emotionally, we have tremendous disappointment. Things can really start to cascade and devolve, and things start to really go down fast; those feelings can lead to poor health choices. So let’s not miss this. The angel or messenger of the Lord doesn’t come in with some profound soundbite for all time. It doesn’t come in with some metaphysical experience. It says, «No, you’re a physical being. You’ve gone through a hard time. Eat well. Nourish your body. Get rest. Do it again.» And you’re going to need to actually respect the physical finite body that you’ve been given. Don’t take the situation from bad to worse because you make poor health choices connected to major disappointment.
I don’t know where you’re at; I don’t know where this hits you. This may be completely irrelevant for you and what you’re walking through. Maybe you’ve never been in the best health of your life. But often, often times, things go from bad to worse because we’re trying to make sense of the chaos in our lives. And in the middle of that, maybe we develop some coping mechanisms, whether physically; you know, now we start eating things we shouldn’t be eating, or we’re not eating at all, or we’re not resting, or we’re not sleeping-we’re not taking time off. We’re starting to become compulsive. And those decisions-friend, your body is fragile. Your body is finite. Your body is a bunch of systems; your body has a bunch of appetites. And if you don’t respect those and don’t treat them well, all of a sudden, this thing that happened emotionally turns physical real quick.
So the angel shows up and says, «Look, you’re going to see some things about God you’ve never seen. We’re going to do some really profound stuff, but the first thing I want you to do is fuel up for the journey and rest up for the journey.» So the path forward starts with a prioritization of health.
It says in verse eight, «So he got up and ate and drank, strengthened by that food.» Notice that: «Strengthened by that food.» He didn’t get some super spiritual, supernatural dose of adrenaline; he’s like, «No, man, it was that food!» He traveled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. Okay, Horeb, the mountain of God, doesn’t mean much to us until we know what it is. It’s actually Mount Sinai. So Mount Sinai is where Moses received the law of God. To the Jewish listener, when they hear this, this is probably the most significant place for them. This is the place where God met man, where God met Moses and gave His word. And so you have this guy who doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t know where to go-he says, «Instead of running away from God, I’m going to run to God.»
And so he gets up from the wilderness. He’s got his rest; he’s nourished his body, and now he takes a 200-mile journey, 40 days and 40 nights, to go to the place that God met Moses. «I want to meet God there.» And it says he went into a cave to spend the night, and the word of the Lord came to him. Look at this! «What are you doing here, Elijah?» What are you doing here? Why are you here? What brought you here? And he wants to get Elijah processing through this path forward. So he starts out and says, «I’ve been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.»
Alright, there’s a literary element at play here; this is known as a Hebrew intensification structure. It’s a way of saying something in the most powerful way possible. So this «I’ve been very zealous» really would be translated, «I have been burning with burning zeal.» I have been burning with burning zeal! I have been giving all my passion; I’ve been giving God what I think He wants, which is the best of me. I’ve put out the best possible energy that I can; I’ve been at a fever pitch; I’ve been white hot! I’ve been absolutely as passionate and zealous as I can possibly be.
And then he says, «I’ve been zealous for the Lord God Almighty.» I’ve been burning with burning zeal, and what do I have to show for it? The Israelites have rejected your covenant; they’ve torn down your altars; they’ve put your prophets to death by the sword; I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me too! Can you feel him wrestling with his theology, with what he’s supposed to believe-feeling like, «I gave my best, and it was a waste! I gave my best, and things are no better than they’ve been since the beginning! God, I thought you were going to use me beyond my ancestors, and I am no better than my ancestors! I thought you were going to use me to stop this freefall of seven kings of the northern kingdom in this divided nation, and I thought you were going to use me in this profound way, and I put all my eggs in that basket! I did my very best to give the best self and trust you in every way! And I thought chapter 18 was going to absolutely be a breakthrough for everybody! Undeniable!»
And now chapter 19-Jezebel’s still in control; in fact, she’s threatening my life! I don’t know what to believe! So verse 11 says, «The Lord said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.'» In other words, this is what we call a theophany. This is God giving some sort of physical manifestation of His presence. In the Bible, the three main forms of theophany are fire, whirlwind, and earthquake. So if we go to Exodus 19:18, this is when God was giving the Ten Commandments to Moses. When God gave him the law, look what it says: «Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire.» Right? So the fire represented the presence of God. The smoke billowed up like smoke from a furnace. Look at this: «And the whole mountain trembled violently,» an earthquake! So you see, remember when the nation of Israel was lost in the wilderness, and God would lead them by a pillar of fire? You remember when Moses went and saw the burning bush? Okay, he saw fire!
So God speaks to Job in a whirlwind. The point of this is that these are the ways God showed up in big, powerful, unmistakable, loud, strong ways in the past, and certainly that’s what Elijah was expecting. So it says, «He said, 'Go stand on the mountain; I’m about to pass by.'» And then it said, «Then a great powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord.» Look at this! «But the Lord was not in the wind.» Then, after the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. «And after the earthquake came fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.» Look at this: «And after the fire came a gentle whisper.»
So the second thing in the path forward that we see from First Kings 19 is a deeper revelation of God. So it starts with a prioritization of actually respecting the physical body that God’s given you. But the second is that God showed him something about Himself that Elijah had never seen. He saw God in a form that he was unfamiliar with. He had only seen God in fire and lightning and all this stuff. And again, that was his mentality. And this kind of checks out — often for us, you know, we see God in the big, bold, powerful action. But can you see God in the deafening silence? Do you see God in the reverberating silence? Do you hear God in the whisper? Often we go, «No, the big crescendo moment-that was God!» And now when I’m in the aftermath and the silence is deafening, I go, «God’s not speaking!» We see silence as empty, but often silence is full. Amen? God is speaking in the fullness of silence!
He had to lean in to hear it. The other things were overwhelming; they were huge; they were loud; they were big. But sometimes in the frenzy of the earthquake and the heat of the fire and the sound of the wind and all of this, sometimes you’re going so fast you can’t tell the difference between adrenaline and anointing. You don’t know the difference between what God’s doing and what you’re doing. You don’t know the difference between your ego and God’s power, and it’s all happening so fast, and you’re feeling so good. And then when it all comes to an aftermath and it dissipates and the music fades and all is stripped away, and all the dust settles, and you’re sitting there and the silence is deafening, you think God has checked out. But actually, God is speaking something different.
And so what He had to do was to bring three things that Elijah thought was what God would do, and He said, «Let me show you one that you haven’t thought of yet.» And He speaks to him in a whisper and brings the sheer quiet and forces him to see something he hasn’t been able to see.
Now, look at this. This is great! This might be my favorite part. It says, «When Elijah heard it, he pulled a cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.» And then a voice said to him, «What are you doing here, Elijah?» It looks familiar, right? A few verses earlier, he asked him the same question, right? «What are you doing here, Elijah?» I think the first time he was asking Elijah, «What are you doing here?» The second time he’s asking him, «What did you learn by what I just showed you?»
Look at this! He replied, «I’ve been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword, and I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me too.» He says the exact same thing! I mean, it’s a copy and paste!
This is also a literary element. When you see redundancy like this, it’s designed to slow the reader down. How many times have you read something in Scripture, just read right over it, and gone right on to the next thing? And this redundancy is forcing us to, as a reader, slow down. There are a few statements being made here, things we need to wrestle with. The first is you expect, as a reader, after the theophany, after the whisper, to see some movement from Elijah; to go, «You know what? I’ve seen the light! I’ve heard the whisper! Wow! Here’s the lesson crystallized!» But what you see is he is stuck in this cycle of despair.
And I appreciate that because the reality is, often when you have this sort of profound change happening in your life-like going from, «I’ve lived my whole life this certain way,» and then in the deafening silence I start to hear something new and think something different-usually, even if you can see it clearly or hear that whisper clearly, it doesn’t just change like that! Like often, it takes-I don’t know about you; maybe you guys are quicker than me — it takes me a while to get what I think in my mind and what I feel in my spirit and what I feel in my body to get that all aligned! Sometimes it’s like I think I know something or I change my mind on something, but it takes my emotions a while to catch up! It gets-takes me a while to get up to speed. And sometimes I’ve got to repeat this thing a few times.
So we see that this process doesn’t just happen in a straight line. It doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye here for Elijah! He’s still feeling what he felt! Even though God showed him something new, he’s still feeling low; he’s still feeling foolish; he’s still feeling disappointed. But verse 15, God changes his response and starts to give him a plan.
And so He says, «Hey listen, here’s what I want you to do: I want you to go back the way you came. I want you to go to the desert of Damascus, and when you get there, anoint Hazael, and then anoint Jehu, and then anoint Elisha.» So the third thing He does in the path forward is He gives him a fresh vision for the future. Notice what He does: He’s changing Elijah’s expectation of this crescendo moment in chapter 18. Like, I could do something just me and God so profound on Mount Carmel in chapter 18 that’s going to change everything for all time. He’s taking him from this looking for this intense moment to change everything to a more realistic expectation that He wants him to start playing the long game. He wants him to build for the long haul. He wants him to do something bigger than himself that will last when he’s gone.
And so He says, «Hey, instead of going back to Mount Carmel and flexing, what I want you to do is go find some people and start to pour your life into them.» Because so far, it’s really been you against the world, right? You’ve gotten really good at being a loner. You’ve gotten really good at just you and God doing stuff. But I want to do something beyond you. I want you to go find other people, and I want you to start pouring into them. I want you to start making an investment; I want you to anoint these people, and I want you to take your cloak-I want you to take your mantle-and I want you to start to put that on them. I want you to start giving them authority; I want you to start giving them your best and pouring your life into them, mentoring them, because this is not just about you.
Up to this point, you thought that if you could have the biggest day ever and if you could have the showdown on Carmel and it would go according to your vision, then everything would be better. And what you’re finding is that the problem you’ve been called to impact isn’t going to happen in some big dynamic moment -it’s going to be a lifetime of faithfulness. Stop overestimating what you can do in one chapter on Mount Carmel, and start now setting your vision on what you can do with a lifetime of faithfulness pouring into people that will be around long after you’re gone.
And so He gives him a fresh plan. And then the last thing is that He gives him a better perspective on his life. Look at this! First Kings 19:18, God says to him, «I reserve 7000 in Israel — all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.» How many times in this text do you hear Elijah go, «I’m the last one; I’m the only one»? He says it twice at Mount Sinai. «You know, I’ve burned all my zeal out; I’m burned out, God! And things are just as bad as they’ve always been-maybe worse. And what’s worse is I’m the only one left!» And God gives him perspective to say, «Sir, all that you see is not all that there is. I know you feel alone, but you’re not alone. I know you feel like you’re the last stand; you’re not the last stand.»
And I think healthy, mature people — we’re seeing Elijah mature in front of our very eyes — have to hold two realities at the same time. One is: what you’re doing, Elijah, is really important! But the other reality is: what you’re doing ain’t that important! Like, yeah, it’s important, but just so you know, don’t get too self-important. God was doing some stuff before you got here! Once you’re gone, He’s going to do more stuff! But for a season of time, you get to do something really important, but don’t get too self-important. You think you’re the last one; you think God’s up in heaven going, «You know, if it doesn’t work out with Elijah, I’m just done! I’m out! I mean, I don’t know-I’m only Yahweh! I only own the cattle on a thousand hills! I only spun this universe into existence all by myself! I don’t remember you being there, Elijah!»
So in a sense, God is giving him perspective: «Yeah, do your part! Do your part, but don’t get too self-important; you start trying to switch roles with God!» That’s good! God says, «Hey, you think you’re by yourself? I got 7000 people you don’t know about!» So not all you see is not all there is. That’s just all you see. And it makes sense why you feel what you feel; it’s okay to have your feelings! But don’t let your feelings and what you feel about reality-your perception of reality-become your conclusion about reality. God can do much more, and He is doing more than you even know about! Amen?
So we know how we got to where we are. How do we move forward? Just to recap: we prioritize health, we get a deeper revelation of God, we get a fresh vision for the future, and we gain a better perspective on life and our reality.
Now I want to take a moment and pray for you. In fact, I’m going to invite our prayer team to come forward now to make themselves ready. I have a feeling that while all of us have something we can take away from today, there are some of you that when I read that text, «I’ve had enough, God! I’ve had enough, Lord! Just take me now!"-some of you can absolutely resonate with the place that Elijah was in. Although your story and his may not be exactly the same, you know what it’s like to give the best of you to something and to expect a certain outcome only to end up in the aftermath, asking, «What is going on? Why am I doing this?» I really thought this was going to bring a bigger change. I thought this was going to have a bigger impact, and I gave everything I had, only to feel like I see it dissipate into thin air. And I don’t know that I can find anything to pull that zeal out of me again.
And I know it’s a terrible place for your flesh to be; it’s the wilderness of Beersheba. But today, I just want to encourage you-God sent a messenger to you today! God sent a bunch of messengers to you today to meet you right where you are. There’s a path forward, and some of it’s going to be so practical! It’s going to be like food and water and rest!
But a lot of it is going to be God showing you something-that the intensity of Mount Carmel in chapter 18 and the intensity-you couldn’t hear the whisper. And now, the dust has settled, and that silence is deafening! And it’s in that moment that God wants to whisper some things to you. He wants you to see some things about Him and yourself and maybe give you a vision for the future that looks much, much different than what you had just a few chapters ago.
And I believe in these moments, God meets us here. Let’s pray. Lord, we come to you in the name of Jesus. Lord, I thank you for all the times that you show up in fire and earthquake and wind and whirlwind and all that good stuff. And that’s great, Lord! But today, we do not forsake or underestimate what you can do in a whisper! And so I pray in this moment for every receptive heart. And some of those receptive hearts are broken hearts, confused hearts.
But Lord, in these moments, you meet us right here. You direct us where we’re supposed to be. So in a certain way, Lord, some of us are in the wilderness of Beersheba. And yet some of us, Lord, have gone to Sinai and said, «Lord, I just want to be in your presence. I need to encounter you! I need to touch you today for you to touch them.» I pray, Lord, no matter how long it takes us to kind of see what we’re supposed to see and work our way through it, Lord, may we unmistakably today sense your presence in this moment. We love you and praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Everybody said, «Amen.»