Elijah’s life has some thrilling lessons for us, don’t you think? His life is worth a deeper study, in my opinion. Some of the intriguing points:
- He was fed by ravens. What an imaginative way for God to meet his needs! If He can meet the needs of His servant in this way, how many other ways could He imagine to meet the needs of His servants? If He could and would do this, why should we doubt that He can and will meet our needs? Perhaps we should see our needs as opportunities for God to do amazing things to provide.
- When God chose to take care of Elijah’s needs through another person, he directed him to Sidon, which was not part of Israel; in fact, it was the birthplace of the wicked Queen Jezebel. Why didn’t God send him to Judah to have his needs met? He used Elijah’s need as an excuse to meet the needs of this widow and her son who were getting ready to die of starvation, even though she didn’t know God as anyone other than the God Elijah served. We couldn’t possibly have God’s higher ways and thoughts figured out.
- His thrilling victory over the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. That established him as a spiritual giant, right? So why did he experience doubt, fear, and depression on the heels of that great victory? His example teaches us the great victory doesn’t make us immune to doubt, fear, and depression.
- He was so down, he told God, “I have had enough.” A prophet of God, one who had such a towering victory, suffered from depression. Depression isn’t necessarily a sign of sin or spiritual failure.
- God responded to him with an encounter that had to be a thrill for him. If you compare and contrast this appearance with what Moses experienced, and with what Isaiah and Ezekiel experienced, you might get a fuller picture of what God is like, but I bet the reality is that these are each only one point of the full picture of God. He is so far beyond our understanding that they can’t provide a full picture. These appearances by God would be a great subject for an in-depth study.
- Elijah was a prophet of God, but he apparently didn’t know about the 100 prophets who had been hidden away by Obadiah, or the 7000 people who were still faithful to God. We can bet that God is working today beyond our experience as well, and even though discouragement may threaten because of what we see going on around us, God is doing big things that are unseen by us.