Wandering Crusader #277 Beaten

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. 1 Kings 19:4

Elijah the prophet seems to have had no happy medium. In my experience, neither do all the preachers who cite him in their sermons. James calls him a man “subject to like passions as we are”. Overthrowing Ahab’s prophets one day, fleeing Jezebel’s men the next, is hardly the image that people promote as saintly.

Believers of positive feelings and generators of positive vibes, in the pulpit and the pew, call reactions like Elijah’s sin. There’s no room in their gospels for self-doubt, even less for self-loathing. Yet, I dare say that no one comes to God without those feelings. No one who finds salvation strolls to the altar and proudly presents himself to God as if he’s doing the Almighty a favor.

God calls Himself the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. He is also everything in between. Jesus did all things well. We are born and die, and if we are willing, we are born again in the interim. However, there is more to a Christian life than salvation and ascension. There is an entire landscape of mountain tops, valleys, and every variant between.

When the journey is done, the prize does not go to he who walked fastest, nor straightest, but to all of those who walked every step set before them. The prize goes to he who kept walking when he was sick, in pain, elated, and depressed. It goes to he who failed to be a paragon of virtue with each step, yet continued even when he was derided for his failures.

Paul said the crown was the reward for fighting the fight and finishing the course. For those critics of Elijah, I would like to point out that God granted his request. He left the juniper tree, called his replacements into service, and God sent a whirlwind to pick him up. So, the question is not how you feel at the moment. The question is, are you willing to go on even when it seems you have been beaten?

Maranatha