Get Real November 23 Devotional
November 23, 2024
1 KINGS 19:1-4 | 1Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. 4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”
Yet, despite these displays of prophetic courage and dramatic faith, Elijah is in a very different state in Chapter 19. He quails before the threats of the evil Queen Jezebel and is so depressed he wants the Lord to end his life.
This man who had been fed by ravens in the Charin Wadi, sustained by miraculous provision while staying with the widow at Zarephath, and who had called down fire from heaven and faced down the awful Asaph, was now undone. How did he move from courage to hopeless despair?
One lesson of this story is that everyone is vulnerable. The idea of autonomous individuals planning and controlling our destinies by free agency, personal power, and sheer determination is a myth. We are always and everywhere creatures dependent on God for our life and strength. Given the right circumstances all of us can be undone by emotional and mental trouble.
Can you see signs of depression in Elijah’s story?
