1 Kings Chapter 19, Verse 3-4
3Elijah was afraid and fled for his life, going to Beer-sheba of Judah. He left
his servant there 4 and
went a day’s journey into the wilderness, until he came to a solitary broom
tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death: “Enough, LORD! Take my life, for
I am no better than my ancestors.”
Depression
is real for saints as it is for sinners; as you power through it you may come
to realize that depression is really just angered directed at yourself.
I.
The wish for death, the weariness of life, is a phenomenon extremely common, and common because it arises from
a multitude of causes; but those causes all run up into this, that, as
Scripture expresses it, ‘man is born to sorrow, as the sparks fly upward.’
Rebuke this feeling as you will, you must deal with it as a fact, and as an
experience of human life. The sense of failure, the conviction that the evils
around us are stronger than we can grapple with, the apparent non-atonement for
the intolerable wrong—there are hours when, under the incidents of these
trials, even the noblest Christian finds it hard to keep his faith strong and
his hope unclouded. Take any man who has spoken words of burning faithfulness,
or done deeds of high courage in a mean and lying world, and the chances are
that his life’s story was clouded by failure or closed in martyrdom.
II. In this chapter we have God’s own gracious way of dealing with this sad but far from uncommon despondency. —Elijah had fled into the wilderness, flung himself down under a juniper tree, and requested that he might die. How gently and with what Divine compassion did God deal with his despair! He spread for Elijah a table in the wilderness, and helped him forward on his way; only then, when his bodily powers had been renewed, when his faith had been strengthened, does the question come, ‘What doest thou here, Elijah?’ The vision and the still small voice may have brought home to the heart of Elijah one reason at least why he had failed. He had tried taunts and violence in the cause of God; he had seized heaven’s sword of retribution, and made it red with human blood. He had not learned that violence is hateful to God; he had to be taught that Elijah’s spirit is very different from Christ’s Spirit. And when God has taught him this lesson, He then gives him His message and His consolation. The message is, ‘Go, do My work again’; the consolation is, ‘Things are not so bad as to human eyes they seem.’
III. Those who suffer from despondency, should (1) look well to see whether the causes of their failure and their sorrow are not removable; (2) embrace the truth that when they have honestly done their best, then the success or the failure of their work is not in their own hands. Work is man’s; results are God’s. Dean Farrar.
Give me the ability
to see as Christ sees
As gentiles who are God-fearing, we must accept our
salvation by living the Shema Israel daily seeking to love Him with our whole
heart, mind, soul and strength. This morning as I said the Shema Israel, I
thought Lord I don’t understand how to love you with my whole soul, but I
decided to say the prayer looking in the mirror at myself. I then said,
“Hear O Israel that the Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord your
God with your whole heart, (I touched my heart) and with your whole mind, (I
touched the side of my temple) with your whole soul (I instinctively touched my
eyes; which are the windows of the soul) and flexed my arms and said with my
whole strength.
It was then
that I realized what the Lord had revealed to me. My eyes: with my eyes I
see things as a child of God, or as a selfish clot. With my eyes I see the good
in the world or I see things that I want. With my eyes I see another human as a
beloved or as an object to be used. Yes, indeed with my eyes my soul does exist
and I will now love the Lord my God with my whole eyes which are the windows of the soul.
·
“The
truly mediocre man admirers everything a little and nothing with warmth… He considers every
affirmation insolent, because every affirmation excludes the contradictory
proposition. But if you are slightly friendly and slightly hostile to all
things, he will consider you wise and reserved. The mediocre man says there is
good and evil in all things, and that
we must not be absolute in our
judgments.
·
If you strongly
affirm the truth, the mediocre man will say that you have too much confidence
in yourself.
·
The mediocre man
regrets that the Christian religion has dogmas. He would like it
to teach ethics, and if you tell him that its code of morals comes from its
dogmas as the consequence comes from the principle, he will answer that you
exaggerate…If
the word ‘exaggeration’ did not exist, the
mediocre man would invent it.
·
The mediocre man appears habitually
modest. He cannot be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre.
·
The humble man scorns all lies, even where
glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth…If the naturally mediocre
man becomes seriously Christian, he ceases absolutely to be mediocre…
·
The man who
loves is never mediocre.”
Please
pray for the intentions of my youngest son Vincent Michael (Conqueror-Who is
like God) whose birthday is today.
Daily Devotions
·
drink
only water. Coffee and Tea are also allowed.
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