STAND I

Earth, Wind and Fire: Don’t Miss the Show!

The intrepid prophet Elijah was in God’s perfect will when the results of his unquestioning obedience landed him in the middle of a three-year drought, secreted in a ravine with just a bird to provide his food - no water and at the city gate asking a desolate widow and her little boy for their last meal. The kid died not too long after.  By then, Elijah’s appreciation of God’s blueprint for his life was hanging on some very frayed nerves of faith.

           

“Then he cried out to the Lord, ‘Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?’” 1 Kings 17:20 (NIV)

God answered the grieving prophet and mother only after Elijah labored in prayer. Nothing came easy even while Elijah was centered in God’s will.

 “Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “‘Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!’” 1 Kings 17:21 (NIV)

Do you see any parallels in your walk? Obedience = circumstances getting tougher? More prayers getting, "No's" and "Not Yets" than the , "Ok, Right Aways?"

After that little test of faith, God’s assignments for Elijah escalated - in difficulty. Elijah went on to command an audience with an already vexed King Ahab to accuse him of being an idolatrous hypocrite taking his nation to hell in a hand basket. The King pronounced Elijah a troublemaker to the nation. That is treason in our parlance.

On the heels of that tense encounter, God used Elijah to display His displeasure with King Ahab’s executive decisions by having the bold prophet humiliate then slaughter 450 priests in the service of Queen Jezebel. By then, the Evil Queen had had it with Elijah’s unsolicited opinions. She put a contract out on his life.

That was the last straw for Elijah. God’s perfect will or not, Elijah’s nerve snapped. He reacted like a deer in headlights and bolted!

Have you ever watched your situation go from bad to worse when you know you are in God’s perfect will? When circumstances seem to get more daunting, more painful, more impossible as you gladly obey God? When plausible outcomes are so terrifying that fear suffocates you even while His affirmation abounds?

During those times you may just feel like Elijah felt and want to move from being an Elijah, which means “my God is Jehovah,” to Elij-i-Quit!

Frequently, God stretches you rubber band thin when you’re precisely where He wants you. Before offering any substantive relief, He may demand of you something akin to having to climb a mountain in the midst of debilitating exhaustion and dismay. 

Consider this. When Elijah let God in on just how tired, hungry and suicidal he was, God’s solution was thin on the coddling comfort. Besides proffering the minimal bread, water and a nap, God told Elijah to take a trip - forty days and nights - to a mountain – to climb it!

“Who may live on your holy mountain?  The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart…Whoever does these things will never be shaken.” Psalm 15:1-5 (NIV)

God had something wonderful in store up on that mountain for His blameless prophet.  You see, God hadn’t sent Elijah to just any mountain. God sent Elijah to Mount Horeb - the very same mountain upon which He revealed Himself to Moses some five hundred years earlier. Elijah obeys – sort of. He hides out in a cave on that mountain and misses God's tremendous display of Earth, Wind and Fire (see STAND II). 

God is urging you toward that same mountain top experience. He tells you as He told Elijah to keep going. You can! Keep going so that you can STAND on that mountain. 

Will you continue your walk in spite of the dismay, discouragement and weariness? Will you climb your mountain of yet one more arduous challenge in order to STAND and see His glory? Or will you give up and miss the show?

“Now then, STAND still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes!” 
1 Samuel 12:16 (NIV)


- Still Processing