Thoughts for the Day

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, 'So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.' Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: 'It is enough; now, O lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.' Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, 'Get up and eat'. He looked and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. ...he ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mountain of God.

(New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Oh dear here we are again - just like Jonah, Elijah goes off into the desert and sits under a tree having done what God wanted him to do, and asks God if he could die! Of course if he had stayed where he was Queen Jezebel would have done that for him!

And why is he depressed after his great triumph on Mount Carmel? Perhaps because although all Israel proclaimed God as the God of Israel, in fact that didn't last. The worship of Baal and Astarte was so entrenched in Israel at this time, that the people are not ready to return to God.

The trouble happens when we want God to do something; we expect a certain thing to happen when we pray; but it doesn't occur. We need to stop expecting what God might do, and watch out for what He does do! It's usually much better than our short-sighted expectatiions!

Saturday 3rd October, follow up thoughts

Lord God,
enable us to ask, and then to
wait for Your intervention,
not to try and decide for You,
but to wait in hope,
knowing that Your solutions
to our problems will work,
unlike our short-term and
short-sighted solutions.
Amen.