But he himself [Elijah] went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
1 Kings 19: 4, 7
…the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, ”Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.”
If our world’s situation doesn’t stress you out, you’re lying.
Words don’t seem adequate to describe this summer. God has not been silent; in fact, He’s been screaming sometimes to get my attention. But I’ve been hiding, like Elijah, under the “broom tree.” I may not have the same extreme conclusion that Elijah came to, but I have certainly spent many days saying, “God, it is enough. I am done.”
I want to see my friends again. I want to drive to the office, and worry about after school childcare, and work remotely from those tiny tables at Starbucks.
I want to go to church. I want to sing with all my might surrounded by hundreds of other voices crying out God. When, God?
“It is enough.”
But I don’t have the authority to determine when it is enough. Not for any part of my life. Only God gets to determine that.
Elijah clearly had depression. He had just come off of a serious spiritual high, ran into some opposition, and in response, he crashed. The story doesn’t end there though. God took care of Elijah. After getting some sleep, God sent an angel to bring him food.
That’s it. That’s the happy ending, right? No. Elijah wasn’t ready to be healed just yet.
God sent the angel again, saying “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” (1 Kings 19:7)
I see two things there: first, isn’t it comforting that God has to send the angel twice? How many times do we pray for healing, and when God doesn’t respond in the way we want on the first try, we give up. As if that’s how it works. God is not a math problem – not only is there not one way to approach Him, but rarely can we actually see “the answer” to our prayers anyway. His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are greater than ours (Isaiah 55:8). We are only one spec of dust within pigment on the great canvas of the universe.
And we’re tired. God is the One who breathes life into us (Genesis 2:7), and without Him, He knows it’s hard to be alive. Elijah was tired. We’re all like that, though I have yet to meet someone who actually wants to admit it. Elijah was a spiritual giant, especially after the miracle God pulled off in the chapter right before this (I’m not going to summarize it, but 1 Kings 18 is an amazing demonstration of God’s power). But even a spiritual giant is only human and still reliant on God for that sustaining breathe of life.
We aren’t given the whole story, but we are told that God had to send the angel twice. Was Elijah that tired that he needed two divine encounters to revive him? Maybe. Or, could it be, like myself too often, he didn’t want to be healed the first time. The depression had grabbed ahold of him and he was stuck in a downward spiral. Perhaps he was limited by his own humanity. Perhaps the chemical imbalance that comes from depression prevented him from seeing what lie ahead. Depression has a way of veiling our eyes from the freedom and joy in which God wants us to live.
The second observation from the angel’s statement is that God knew the journey was too much for Elijah.
God knew it was too much.
Ever been told “God won’t give you more than you can handle”? That’s a bunch of b.s. Just to be blunt. That’s NOT in the Bible. The verse people point to for that application comes from 1 Corinthians – God won’t tempt us more than we can handle without a way out. Temptation and life circumstance are two very different things. And even there, God’s not abandoning us with overwhelming temptation.
He knows life is too much!
Read that again – God knows life is more than we can handle! “The journey is too great for you.”
So why did God allow Elijah to take this emotional route? Because He knew this is what it would take for Elijah to learn to lean on Him. Immediately after this in 1 Kings 19 is a beautiful description of Elijah on a quest to hear God’s voice. After the second visit with the angle, Elijah was ready to pursue God again. It’s not that he wasn’t prior to this, but he hit a valley. And who pulled him out? God did. Elijah was content to stay there; he even asked to die there instead of being pulled out. But God still had more for him.
God can pull each one of us out too. It’s not our job to pull ourselves out. God will keep sending whatever it takes to strengthen us for the journey. 1 Kings 19 says He sent an angel. Perhaps He’ll send you an angel, but He may send you a hug from a child, or a raise at work, or even just a sense of peace that is unexplainable.
So many people are feeling the effects of this forced isolation due to covid19. Whether you get to the point of actual depression, or just find yourself walking through loneliness, we’re all feeling stuck and trapped. God is at work. God is pulling us out of this coronavirus mess. We cannot see the whole picture from our vantage point, nor can we, like Elijah, even see ahead to what we’re facing once God does pull us from this valley. But we can trust that God is going to be with us on the journey.