Elijah had great faith and great courage, yet in this moment when he fled from Jezebel, we find him drowning in fear and doubt. Elijah is a poignant reminder that even when we have faith, we are vulnerable to fear—that even when we have hope, we are still susceptible to despair. The warrior knows that the light and the darkness are at war within them. No matter how they look, every hero is still human. Elijah was no different. The warrior knows their strength, and, perhaps more critically, they know their weakness. Elijah went from standing with an unwavering faith against insurmountable odds to running for his life and being overtaken by an irrational fear.
After he was too exhausted to run any farther, he came to a broom bush and sat under it. What kind of prayer would you expect a man like Elijah to pray in a moment like this? Lord, in the same way that you brought fire down from heaven and in the same way you closed the heavens and withheld rain, I am asking you to take care of Ahab and Jezebel. That’s the prayer I would expect. God, you have already demonstrated your power. You’ve already made it undeniable that you are with me. Just tell me where to go and what to do, and I’m there. That’s what I could anticipate him saying. But in actuality his prayer was quite the opposite.
He sat down under the bush and prayed that he might die. “ ‘I have had enough, LORD,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.”109 It seems to me the only hope Elijah had was that God would end his life in the quietness of his slumber. I don’t think he expected to awaken to the same life from which he had run.
One of the most perplexing realities I have had to learn is that in the wake of my greatest victories will come crashing into my soul my greatest despairs. They will be commensurate to their statuses: the greater the heights of victory, the greater the depths of despair. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that fear makes you a coward. The moment you believe you are not vulnerable to the most basic of human frailties, you have postured yourself to be shattered to pieces. Everyone gets discouraged. And by its very etymology, to be discouraged is to lose your courage. More of us than will ever admit will struggle with depression or being depressed. Life carries great weight, and if you find the courage to take on great battles, you will feel an even greater weight that will sometimes seem more than you can bear.
I am a person who loves life and continuously pursues living fully, but I fully identified with Elijah’s prayer: “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life.” I wish I could tell you that I have never known this kind of darkness, but I have. I wish I could tell you that as filled with hope as I have been on my journey, I have never felt myself suffocating under an overwhelming sense of despair, but I have never been exempt from those struggles. I have known them all too well. There are days I cannot sleep because of worry, and others when I don’t want to wake up to face the battles that I know are coming. I have had too many people I have loved come to the end of themselves, and too many who have chosen to end themselves, to treat this moment in Elijah’s life lightly.
Elijah the prophet of God wanted God to end his life, and we should pause and reflect deeply about this truth. The warrior is not free from the darkness but must face darkness and bring to it the light.
When Life Is More Than You Can Bear
I am profoundly moved by God’s response to Elijah’s fragile and frail condition. I think if Elijah were alive today and responded in the same way, he would be the target of antagonism, judgment, and condemnation. He would be seen as unworthy of leadership. He would be told to stop focusing on himself and to put his focus back on God. He would be judged for his lack of faith, condemned for succumbing to his depression, and ridiculed for running away and not facing the realities of life.
God instead responded with incredible gentleness and compassion. An angel was sent to touch Elijah and instruct him to get up immediately. No loud noises, no angry rebuke or reprimand, no condemnation for his cowardice—just a simple caress to wake him from his sleep and encouragement to get up and eat.
Startled by this intervention and unaware that food was available, Elijah quickly looked around. By his head there were freshly baked bread and a cool jar of water. After Elijah ate and drank, he lay down again. Have you ever noticed that when you are depressed, all you want to do is sleep? You may not even have the strength to eat or drink, but if someone brings you a food or beverage, you’ll submit to their offer and then go back to sleep. This is exactly what Elijah did.
But the angel of the Lord came back a second time and gently touched him again. This time the angel added a bit more information to his encouragement: “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”110 I don’t think it’s incidental that on his first appearance, the angel didn’t mention the journey ahead; he just told Elijah to get up and eat. The second time the angel appeared, he began to speak to Elijah about his future. He didn’t say that things were going to get easier. He didn’t say not to despair because there weren’t any challenges ahead. He spoke the truth: Elijah, you need to regain your strength because the journey ahead is too much for you in your present state. The warrior knows that the strength they have today won’t match what they’ll need tomorrow.
Elijah was fortified by that food. I want you to know that God will give you the strength you need not simply to face the challenges that are right in front of you but to continue the journey that awaits. There are times when the warrior’s greatest weapon is to withdraw. There are moments when if you are to advance, you must retreat. This is the profound nature of God—that when we are weak, he is strong. When we have lost our strength, he replenishes it.
Elijah’s soul was starving, but God began the process of restoration by feeding his body. If you are depressed, if you are discouraged, if you’ve tasted the crushing blow of defeat, the most spiritual thing you can do is make sure you regain your strength. The most spiritual thing Elijah could do was eat and drink.
You are not a body with a soul; you are a soul with a body. But the health of your soul is profoundly connected to the health of your body. It doesn’t sound very spiritual, but Elijah had to face the physical and emotional effects of exhaustion. He had not accounted for the toll that victory demands of the warrior. Once he had regained his strength, he then traveled for forty days and forty nights until he reached the mountain of God.
There is a journey ahead of you that will require great strength. There are many battles yet to fight. In some you will know victory, and in others you will taste defeat. But no battle will steal your life like the battle for your soul. If you are not careful, fear will drive you to run for your life and run from your life. Even when we run, God has an amazing way of meeting us as we hide in our own wilderness, helping us restore our strength and calling us back to himself.
When You’ve Lost Your Way
I’m always intrigued by the questions God asks his people. After Adam and Eve had eaten from the forbidden tree, God asked, “Where are you?”111 When Elijah came to the mountain, he went into a cave and spent the night there. God asked Elijah the most fascinating question. After Elijah had run away for forty days and forty nights to a place he had never intended to go, the Lord asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”112
At first glance it would seem that Elijah was running from Jezebel, but a more careful look at Elijah’s inner turmoil makes it clear he was running from God. This understanding presses us against one of the most perplexing truths in our spiritual journeys: when you are running from your fears, you are running from God. Hidden in your fears is the faith you are searching for. If you want to meet God, stand in your fears. Stand in your pain. Stand when everything inside you tells you to withdraw. Elijah ran from God and ran right into him.
By the way, if you’re running from God, he’s already waiting for you, wherever your journey takes you. No matter how far you run, he will be just as close to you as he was when you left.
I don’t know why we try to answer God’s questions as if he doesn’t already know the answer. Elijah began with a long explanation for why running for his life made perfect sense. He began by telling God everything he had done, and maybe that’s part of the problem. Elijah had taken the story of God with Elijah and turned it into the story of Elijah with God. My story is not the story of me with God; it is the story of God with me. Even when I have chosen to run, God has stuck with me. When I chose to hide, God found me. When I wanted to end my life, God gave me life.
Elijah’s summary of his dilemma presents a false view of reality: “I am the only one left.”113 How strange that we think we are alone when God is with us. One of our greatest fears is abandonment. Nothing will steal your hope as powerfully as an overwhelming sense of aloneness. There are times when you will choose to walk with God and you will feel as if you are walking alone. Yet you must not forget that you are never alone: God is always with you.
God instructed Elijah to go stand on the mountain in order to encounter his presence. The Lord himself was about to pass by that very mountain: “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.”114 Finally, after the fire there came “a still small voice.”115
The way God chose to reveal himself was a reminder to Elijah that his strength was not rooted in the spectacular but in the intimate. Elijah had seen God in the wind and had seen him shake the earth and had seen him send fire from heaven. But he had forgotten that God was not in the wind or the shaking or the fire: he was in the still small voice that spoke to the depth of Elijah’s soul and let him know that God was with him.
Elijah pulled his cloak over his face and stood at the mouth of the cave. Even though Elijah knew he had been found out, he covered his face to both hide from God and hide from himself. He heard the voice of the Lord once again asking him, “Elijah, what are you doing here?”116
Whether you are running to the battle or running from it, whether you are running for your life or running from it, never forget that the warrior’s strength is not in how powerfully they can strike their sword or wield their weapon. The way of the warrior is the way of the whisper. The warrior knows who God is and who they are. Even in those moments when you find yourself struggling with discouragement or even drowning in a deep sense of despair, even in those moments when you are afraid and feel yourself past the brink of exhaustion, rather than asking God to take your life, ask him to give you life.
The Inescapable Battle
Perhaps no one knew the exhilaration of great victories better than David, who ultimately became the king of Israel. We know the stories of his great exploits, his great conquests, and his great battles. He had accomplished many mighty deeds, yet perhaps he is most frequently remembered for one of his most prominent moments of disgrace. David, at the height of his power, betrayed one of his best friends, one of his own commanders, so that he could steal his loyal friend’s wife. Let that sink in for a moment. David had one of his most honorable and trustworthy leaders essentially assassinated so he could take for himself that warrior’s wife.
At this time, King David had an endless number of wives and concubines. Uriah, David’s commander, was an honest and courageous warrior with one wife, named Bathsheba. She was beautiful. And on one particular evening, David happened to get out of bed and walk on the roof of his palace, when he saw her bathing.
David had a choice to make. There were no Philistines to fight in that moment. There were no giants to slay from the safety of his palace. But war raged within David’s soul. His present battle was the battle with the darkness within. Almost in a casual way, the story of Bathsheba begins with what may seem like an innocuous description: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army….But David remained in Jerusalem.”117
I imagine that David had no small part in the writing of his life’s story. Kings often secure their legend and legacy by closely supervising the crafting of the words that recount the story of their lives. This leads me to believe that David would’ve been aware of the importance of that seemingly harmless line. Where Elijah ran from the battle, David simply hung back when he should have moved forward. It’s a poetic description of that time of year: “in the spring, at the time when kings go off to war.” Although it is beautiful, it is also profound. The story’s author, Samuel, wanted his readers to understand that there was a battle that David should have been fighting but that he had abdicated his responsibility to lead. He kept the title of king but gave someone else the position’s wartime responsibilities.
One of the most dangerous places to stand is where you were never supposed to be in the first place. David never should have been walking on the roof of the palace that spring evening. It was spring, and that’s when kings go to war. It was spring, and David was king over Israel. It was spring, and the king’s men were in the heat of battle. It was spring, and everything was happening as it should, except that David remained behind.
I wonder how often we find ourselves making our worst choices because we have abdicated the battles we are supposed to be in and then end up in battles we were never supposed to fight. David had lost his intention, and when you lose your intention, you are vulnerable to your worst decisions. In avoiding the danger of battle, David had become a liar, an adulterer, and a murderer. I have to believe that if he had seen where the last domino would fall, he never would have made that first choice.
It’s often the first choice that doesn’t look like a choice. The choice is clear when you choose to kill. The choice is clear when you choose to commit adultery. The choice is clear when you’ve chosen to look where you shouldn’t have. David found out that it’s hard to deny the reality of those choices. Given enough time, the evidence usually demands a verdict. What can’t be seen is what is imperceptible to others and often even to ourselves. It’s that first choice—the one where David decided not to go to war, the one where he chose to abdicate his responsibility, the one where he simply decided to stay behind. When you are not who you are supposed to be, you will most certainly be where you wish you had not gone. What Goliath could not do to David, complacency destroyed with ease. I am convinced that the question of the angel of the Lord for Elijah is one that God is still asking us all: “What are you doing here?” It was spring, and David should have been off to war, but instead he lost the battle to the darkness within.
You Can’t Outrun the Darkness
As children we seem naturally inclined to be afraid of the dark. It’s so difficult to convince a child that there’s nothing in the darkness to be afraid of—that everything they outwardly fear is a projection of their inner fears. As a parent I quickly learned that all the proper explanations did not help my children at all. Only two things could help them overcome their fear. One was to turn on the light. It worked every time. The moment the light expelled the darkness, the fear was gone—until I turned the light off again. The only other solution for their fear of the dark was if I agreed to stay until they fell asleep. More often than not, I was happy to do so.
Sometimes I wonder if children are more perceptive than adults. We ignore the darkness until it consumes us. Each of us will fight the darkness within. For one of us it will be fear, for another greed. For one of us it may be despair, for another bitterness. The darkness may want you to take what is not yours or surrender what should be yours. Whether you find yourself like Elijah, overwhelmed by fear, or like David, consumed by lust, there is only one way to deal with the darkness: keep God close and become the light. The one thing you do not want to do is face the darkness alone.
When Elijah the prophet faced his dark night of the soul, he ran for his life and struggle
d alone in the desert. When David the king faced his darkest hour, he sent his men away and found himself alone on the roof. Not even prophets or kings should attempt to face their darkest moments alone. Not even Jesus wanted to do that.
Before Jesus allowed himself to be taken to the cross, he faced his darkest night. He often went to the Mount of Olives, which seemed to be one of his favorite places to withdraw and pray. This night was different. This time he would prepare to face the moment for which he was born. He knew what was ahead of him. He would face the brutality of the cross, and if that were not enough, he would also carry upon himself the weight of the world. The multitudes saw his suffering on the cross, but only those closest to him saw his suffering in the garden.
Jesus experienced his dark night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsemane. If anyone could face one’s darkest moment alone, we would naturally assume it should have been Jesus. However, he chose to take three of his closest friends with him. He trusted Peter and John and James to know the depth of his own struggle. He asked them to wait with him as he prayed. He also asked them to pray for him and themselves. In a moment of unexpected and breathtaking transparency, Jesus said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”118
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