From The Mountaintop - Elijah

“I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

1 Kings 19:4

When you come away from a great experience such as getting married or becoming a father, how do you feel? Excited? Jubilant? Joyful? All of the above? Usually when we receive a great blessing from the Lord, we bask in the positive feelings it brings.

At other times, God takes us to a spiritual or emotional mountaintop and then drops us into a darker time in the valley.

Elijah had just seen God’s mighty hand at work in successfully confronting the prophets of Baal. He had ended a long drought in Israel by calling rain from the sky. You would think that Elijah would be on an extended spiritual and emotional high, but that’s not what happened.

Just days after the drought ended, Elijah received word that Jezebel, the Baal-worshiping wife of King Ahab, had vowed to kill him. “You killed the prophets of Baal,” she declared, “and you’re next.”

Elijah could stay and trust God to miraculously protect and deliver him or hightail it out of town before Jezebel found him. Emotionally and spiritually spent, the prophet headed for the woods, lay down under a broom tree, and poured out his heart to God.

In just a few days, Elijah had gone from the mountaintop of ecstasy to a valley of depression, but God had no intention of allowing him to stay in that valley. God was about to pick Elijah up, dust him off, and send him back to living and enjoying his life of faith.

Though Elijah confessed that he had had enough and wanted to die, God said, “Let’s talk, Elijah.” God then restored him.

God may take you through places of difficulty where it doesn’t seem that your faith works as it once did. He will never allow you to stay there, though. As he did for Elijah, he will give you just what you need to continue your life of faith.