This is now the second week that I find I must apologize for not having an article to go with this devotion. Since I came down with this thing (a viral infection according to the doc) ten days ago, I have found it very difficult to sit at the computer long enough to write, or even to have a quiet time.
The talk I needed to give has now been delivered, and I think that’s part of the problem. During the week leading up to that event, I had a goal to focus all my thoughts and all my efforts on accomplishing. I could almost have had a mission clock counting down to H-hour. I rolled out all my old military metaphors to help keep me going toward that one, overriding goal: to deliver the message the Holy Spirit gave me to deliver.
But the mission has been accomplished now. I’ve given the talk, and the very small amount of feedback I’ve received has all indicated that it hit the target. But whether on target or off, I’ve delivered it. My part is finished. What effect it will have on those who heard it, how it will affect the church overall and the greater culture, how it should be integrated with other Wednesday night and even Sunday morning messages, these are important questions. But they’re not my issues; some of these are issues for the leadership of my church to address. Others are matters only for the Holy Spirit to deal with. None are within the scope of responsibilities God has give me.
Unfortunately, “get well,” which sounds, even to me, like a perfectly reasonable mission, is proving to be much too amorphous to really focus on. I’m not sure how to break through that. But I also know that I’m not the first one to ever walk this road.
Elijah, in 1 Kings 18:16-19:18, was me on hyper-steroids. Where I’m only dealing with a sickness, he had an evil queen with an army trying to kill him. I had an important talk to give on spiritual warfare, he had a confrontation with hundreds of prophets of Baal and Asherah. But when the confrontation was over, when all the false prophets were dead, and when, furthermore, the three and a a half year drought that God had inflicted on Israel had been broken, the queen and her army were still there, waiting to kill Elijah. He hadn’t been given any new assignment yet; he was just staying away from the people who wanted to murder him (He didn’t really need a special command from God to know he should do that).
So Elijah went out into the desert, as far as he had the strength to make it, sat down under a broom tree and prayed:
“I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19:4).
This prayer did not come from a place of arrogantly presuming to be someone great, but rather a humble recognition that he was not. He was a nobody, only one man that God had used. And he had only one man’s strength, far too little to deal with the situation he was in. That feels pretty familiar to me right now. I’m just one man, and this sickness has sapped my strength until it feels like there’s very little left, and nothing that’s worth using it to push toward.
So, what did God do? He sent an angel with food to strengthen Elijah (1 Kings 19:5-6). And then he did it a second time, because one meal alone, even with food from an angel, was not enough (1 Kings 9:7-8). Only then was Elijah able to get up and travel to the mountain cave where God would address his spiritual burnout, and give him new instructions.
So that’s where I think I am right now; under the broom tree with Elijah. I don’t want to die, but I also don’t have the strength to really want to do anything else. I need God to restore me so that I’ll be to heal and, when the time comes, take on his next assignment. Please pray for me that restoration comes quickly.