BROADCASTS.com

Then a voice said to him, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d (1 Kings 19:13).

This Advent, Wilderness Wonderings is offering you \u2018riffs\u2019 on the theme Immanuel. Yesterday, Pastor Anthony invited us to ponder God\u2019s question, \u201cWhere are you?\u201d Today, I\u2019d like you to consider with me another question God asked, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d

Full disclosure. I love this chapter. Many of us who are pastors can identify with Elijah. Of course, Christian who are not pastors can also relate to Elijah\u2019s discouragement. But more than that, I am fascinated by God\u2019s response to his despairing prophet.

This comes just after Elijah\u2019s literal mountain top experience with God. He had challenged the priests of Baal to a do or die contest of the gods. Baal vs the Lord God of Israel. The Baal priests would build an altar to Baal and Elijah would build one for the Lord God. Which ever god sent fire to light their altar would win the contest.

God won in spectacular fashion! It was really no contest.

When all the priests of Baal are killed, Queen Jezebel wants Elijah\u2019s head.

Elijah flees in fear and despair.

He drops down, exhausted under a broom tree in the wilderness. He just wants to die. Many of God\u2019s people have felt the same. One of them was a great hymn writer, William Cowper. Check out his hymn, Oh for a Closer Walk with God. He composed that, but he also frequently suffered from severe depression.

The thing in this story that always intrigues me is God\u2019s response to Elijah. He feeds him. Twice. This is not a prescription for curing depression. However, it does give us an image of God showing up in our discouragement.

Later, Isaiah would write this about God\u2019s chosen servant, \u201cA bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out\u201d (Isaiah 42:3). Jesus recognized that he himself was the chosen servant. I wonder if Isaiah got the idea from God\u2019s interaction with Elijah? Its an image of Immanuel, God with us, which Jesus embraced.

Elijah then journeys to the mountain of God, where God appears to him in the whisper of the breeze, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d We may want to lash out at Elijah, \u201chow could you be so discouraged after what God did on Mount Carmel?\u201d

Of course, there may be some mild rebuke in God\u2019s question. But God is gentle with Elijah and sets him back on course. Elijah thinks he is all by himself, that he is done and God is done too. But God tells Elijah that he still has 7 000 in Israel who worship him alone. God was doing a whole lot more than what Elijah could see.

And then God gives Elijah more work to do.

On my ornament, I am going to simply write the question, \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d When I am discouraged it will remind me of how God responded to Elijah when he was discouraged.

And is there anyone who you can reach out to in order to offer them encouragement, what ever form that may be.