The Setback | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Setback | Previous Challenge Entry
By Stanley McMahon
06/10/14
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The Setback
Day Five into his wilderness wander and the same loop that had been playing in his mind over and over for the best part of a week was playing again. He had stopped looking over his shoulder but the images of the trauma he had just experienced were ever present.
It started at Zarephath, right in the heart of enemy territory where he had experienced the faithfulness and power of Yahweh in the house of the widow. He had become close to that little family unit and if truth were told, he missed them.
He replayed the meeting with Obadiah, then Ahab and the showdown on Mount Carmel and the prophets of Baal and the Kidron Valley judgment. After all that emotionally draining drama, there had been the marathon run in the rain back to the palace.
He had never dreamed that after such an overwhelming experience and demonstration of the power of God, he would be so devastated and depressed by that crazy queen. What was the point of it all, if there was to be, instead of the revival and repentance of the nation of Israel, the destruction of himself, the chosen instrument of God to bring the nation back to Himself? What was the point of the mountain-top experience if it had no bearing on the reality in the valley?
On and on he walked for seemingly days on end, but he knew where he had to go. To the mountain of God. Surely there God would speak to him, or bury him. Surely there, he would be able to make sense of it all.
When the angel tapped him on the shoulder to wake him to the hot bread, there was a familiarity of procedure. He had seen God work in this way before at the stream and then at Zarephath. This was comfort food indeed. He felt sure he was on the right track. He would meet with God.
Day Forty and another mountain. Horeb, or Sinai, was where his forefather Moses had experienced God; Horeb would be his trysting place with the Holy One.
When it happened, he wasn’t surprised by it. He expected God to show up and he was ready. When the holy words enquiring of his reason for being there lanced his boil of septic spiritual pain, he couldn’t hold back. ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God. The people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars and killed your prophets and now they are trying to kill me!’
The divine remedy was to do as He has done before with His servant Moses, and as He does with all His servants who seek His face in desperate and honest heart to heart confrontations – He revealed Himself. And remarkably but understandably, the great prophet still had to speak and get it out of his system but even before the words were fully out in the open, the mood had changed. His second outpouring, although the same words, had lost their power. Some of the hurt and been healed and the grace of God’s presence had changed the direction of his ministry, and in the silence that ensued he accepted that he would never be the same.
From then on, the fiery prophet would be the mentor. He would spend his time passing on what he had learned from hard lessons and long nights. He was not finished in his ministry and Jezebel would never terminate his life because it was not her prerogative to do so. When he had accomplished all that God had for him to do, then he would be moved on. Until that time, he would leave Horeb in the knowledge that the same God Who had provided for Him in the past and displayed His greatness and faithfulness to His covenant, would continue to be wholly unfathomable but completely close to His servant and true to His word. Elijah would be back because grace had followed him all the way down the valley of desperation and across the gamut of emotions and brought him to the open and loving arms of the Father.

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