5-21-2014

Good Morning All,

        1 Kings 19:3; “Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.”

     He ran for his life.  This is part of a larger story in the Old Testament.  This is part of one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.  Elijah, the greatest prophet in the Bible, met with the priests of Baal (A false god) and had a competition.  Elijah built an altar to God and the Baal priests built an altar to their god.  Each was to call down fire form their god to see who the true god was.  The Baal priests spent all morning and nothing happened.  Elijah even started to trash talk and suggested that maybe Baal was in the bathroom and couldn’t hear them.

    Then Elijah took his turn.  First he poured water all over his offering on the altar and then prayed to God to send down fire.  Fire came down and even burned up the extra water that ran away from the offering.  Then Elijah took charge and killed the Baal priests, hundreds of them.  He had just witnessed God’s power and authority; he had just destroyed the Baal priests; he was at the top but then…

     Queen Jezebel looked at him and told him that he would be dead by the next day.  Elijah became afraid and ran.  He actually ran for forty days and nights until he got to Mount Horeb or Sinai.  He became afraid so he took it upon himself to run away.  He was afraid so he ran away.  This is not always a bad idea but running from our fears and worries can be.  The problem was not so much that he ran but he tried to go it on his own, all alone.

    This is what got Elijah into trouble, he tried to face the world alone and the fear and the worry consumed him.  When the Word of the Lord came to him, Elijah thought he was the only one left in all of Israel who still worshipped God.  Have you ever felt like that?  Have you ever felt like running from your fears and running for 40 days and nights?  Many of us have and we aren’t in bad company, many of the “heroes” of the Bible ran when confronted by fear.  The important thing to remember is that the fear would have won had they not listened to God’s Word speaking to them.

    God came after Elijah to speak to him and to comfort him and to give him strength.  God does this for you as well, He calls for you to hear him and to hear his words of hope and comfort.  The important part for us is that we do not run away from God in our attempt to get away from our troubles.  Our fears are only large when we face them by our self and when we fail to trust in God’s promise is when we are truly alone.  So don’t run from God rather run to God and cling to his promises.

Father, too often I run from you when my fears overtake me.  Help me to stop running from you and to cling to you.  Guard us by your Spirit, lead us into your gracious peace.  Be with those who are running at this time; those who fears are overwhelming and crushing their hopes.  Protect them and bring them peace.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret