We’re all in over our heads right now. These are hard times.
But the hard times are the best times to become who God made us to be.
The prophet Elijah experienced this in 1st Kings 19. He just did this amazing thing for God on Mount Carmel in chapter 18. He took care of business and proved there is only One True God.
Then right after that spiritual high, in 1st Kings 19:1-2, one of the scariest rulers in all of Scripture (Queen Jezebel) tells Elijah – “I’m going to take you out.”
And Elijah responds just like any of us would: “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.”
In verse 4, he ends up next to a bush in the middle of nowhere, and here’s what he tells God:
“I’ve had enough, God.”
In the middle of this COVID crisis, I’m pretty sure most of us feel that way too. Elijah hit rock bottom so hard that he actually asks God to take his life and then falls asleep because he’s so exhausted.
Isn’t that where we are right now? Exhausted. Scared. Worried. Wanting to run from our problems (except we can’t because we’re in quarantine lockdowns)…
But look what God does for Elijah!
In 1st Kings 9:5 it says, “All at once an angel touched him and said,
‘Get up and eat.’”
And that message isn’t just for Elijah back in the day; it’s for us today in 2020 too!
In the middle of Elijah’s stress, fear, and exhaustion – God challenges Elijah to be courageous. But he doesn’t just get in his face and leave him there.
In 1st Kings 9:6 it says, “Elijah 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.”
Here’s the amazing thing about the One True God:
He doesn’t call us to do something that he doesn’t provide for.
God doesn’t write checks that bounce.
God’s calling is his enabling, and he will give us everything we need to do what he’s calling us to do. Right here. Right now. “For such a time as this…”
We have to get up. We have to eat, drink, and humbly receive what God has laid out before us.
None of us wants this. We wouldn’t choose it ourselves, and we’re praying desperately for God to stop the spread of this virus.
But crisis catapults courage. God will fuel us forward.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” (Ephesians 3:20).
– DHN
Dan & Joy Nichols 