Was reading 1 Kings 17 and just kept wondering how a man of God like Elijah, who had just seen someone’s son raised from the dead and who had just stood in front of 450 Baal prophets and had the confidence to taunt them and pray before hundreds of people that GOD would answer him and call down fire to burn the sacrifice could in the next moment, be scared and pray instead to die rather than be saved.

When I was pondering on this in question to the Lord, it was like literally “the word of the Lord came to me” and I felt like I heard that Elijah had Faith for others but not for himself. At this sentence I could feel my heart swell and the tears welling up in my eyes. How often has this also been me?

Why do so many of us like Elijah, have faith that when we pray for others to be healed, raised from the dead, for God to show up in a big way for others to know that he is God that he will – but when it comes to our own protection we are afraid?

When he got a message from Jezebel that she was going to send someone to kill him, instead of praying that God would protect him from her and that God would just show up and rain fire down on his enemies if God could bring fire down on his sacrifice, he prayed that he might die. “Take my life, I am no better than my ancestors”.

But God in his mercy knew his humanness and knew that his mortal body needed water, food and rest. “get up and eat”.

I also noticed as I read and re-read the story that there were a few lies that Elijah was meditating on. He kept repeating that all of the prophets of the Lord had been killed and that he was the only one left that was zealous for the Lord. He had said it to the people of Israel and also to the Lord in his presence, twice – even after Obadiah told him that he had hid 100 prophets in the caves and saved their lives. Elijah was not the only one left but he kept feeling sorry for himself and worried for his life that he was the only one. Downcast, Discouraged. Tired. Dejected.

When he repeated this lie to God again ” I am the only one left”, God did not reprimand him but only told him to find a replacement and also revealed to him that he had 7000 people reserved that did not worship Baal. Elijah was not the only one left as he kept telling himself.

After this point, God was going to take Elijah away, take away his life on this earth as he had prayed for – passing on his mantle to Elisha.

It was like, God could not do anymore work through Elijah’s life when he no longer had faith and partnered with fear and meditated on the lies of the enemy. God is not like the enemy that gets rid of you when you can’t be used by God anymore. He allows you to rest and just passes the job to someone else. God really hears the prayers of our hearts and if we give up, God won’t force us to keep pushing on to be his messenger and to carry out his work.

Holding the lessons learnt from this true story in my heart today and remembering the lies spoken and the truths that are:
——————————————————————————————————————-
1) You are not the only one left >>> Therefore you are not alone, God has many others who love him and are just as zealous for him who have a relationship with him and hear him too.

2) If you can have faith for God to show up for others, why not have faith for God to show up for you? If God is the God of the impossible, If God can raise a boy from the dead, send fire down from heaven, God can protect you from a death threat, from the enemy’s attack on your life.

3) God honors the desires of your heart even if that means that you want to die and want to be taken off this earth he will respect that too and not force you to be his messenger and do his work – Do we want to make prayer requests out of a heart posture of fear or faith? Is what we are asking of God because we are afraid we will be killed or because we believe he will save?

4) Don’t look at the public victories of a “man of God” and allow that to determine the private prayer life and decisions one makes. Even a Man of God who had just seen huge miracles acts of God needs sleep, water and food. Despite any messenger that God works through and speaks through, they are human and can be discouraged, tired worn out and just need encouragement, comfort, basic things of life like anyone else.