What Are You Doing Here?
Part Five

I Kings 19:13
(I Kings 17-19)

Elijah is in a state of despair. (See Archives, Part Four.) Even after a great victory given him by the Lord, he feels helpless and desperate. Now we will begin to see how God lifts him from despair to hope.

Nevertheless… Elijah ran. He ran to Beersheba in Judah where he left his servant and traveled a day’s journey into the desert. There he came to a broom tree, sat under it and prayed to die. “I have had enough! It’s more than I can endure!”

But God understands. Elijah slept a sleep of exhaustion and then was awakened by an angel of God. “Get up and eat” (I Kings 19:5). After eating the bread and drinking the water that were provided for him, Elijah rested again. Sometimes rest is what we need more than anything else. As we are captured by the routines of this life often we fail to rest.

A second time the angel awakened him and gave him food. After eating, he was directed to travel to Mt. Horeb, a journey of forty days. There he went into a cave and spent the night.

And the word of the Lord came to him,” What are you doing here, Elijah?” (I Kings 19:9).

Elijah reminded the Lord of his ministry and his plight by giving the Lord a series of “I” messages. How many times do we try to give the Lord “I” messages when we should be giving Him “You” messages? He also gave Him a few “They” messages that were none too flattering to the people of Israel. We also tend to remind the Lord, in one way or another, of the inadequacy of others.

“I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. [They] have rejected your covenant…and put your prophets to death. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” (See I Kings 19:10)

And the Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord for the Lord is to pass by” (I Kings 19:11).

All of us would do well to spend more time standing in the presence of the Lord. We need to spend more time in His presence through our study of His Word. It is not my desire to sound “preachy” but can you imagine standing before our Lord and saying, “Yes, I know you gave me your Word to read and study, but I was really too busy with other things.”

We would all do well to spend more time standing in the presence of the Lord in prayer. How privileged we are that the Creator of this universe is interested in our speaking to Him. He encourages us to, “… not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present [our] requests to [Him]. And [His] peace, which transcends all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

We would all do well spending time in the presence of the Lord by serving Him. And we serve Him by serving others. It has always been amazing to me how minimal my problems become when I am focused on doing things for other people. It is the example of Jesus to serve rather than to be served.

In our final Studies on Elijah we will look at how Elijah rose to the Lord’s challenge and continued on his journey to victory.