Just a regular guy day1

 Just a Regular Guy

1 KINGS 17–19 

Jeroboam was a bad king. Saul had been a near-disaster. David had his rough patches. Solomon started so well but ended in shame. But Jeroboam didn’t even come close. He was bad from beginning to end. 

So it is not surprising to find out that his son was bad. And his son’s son. And his son’s son’s son. And just when you think they couldn’t get any worse, along comes Ahab, the worst king of them all, a selfish, immature man controlled by his ambitious and overbearing wife, Jezebel. Together they led the Northern Kingdom of Israel into an unprecedented level of idolatry. 

Into this awful mix, God sent a prophet named Elijah to deliver a critical message and attempt to persuade Israel to return to YHWH. 

And you thought your job was hard! 

You’d think God would have picked someone with superhuman intelligence and strength, but He didn’t. He picked Elijah, a regular person just like us. Elijah was just a normal guy who struggled with self-doubt, loneliness and acceptance, but when God told him to do something, he did it. Maybe that’s the difference between Elijah and many of us. 

The first thing Elijah did to get everyone’s attention was to ask God to make it stop raining. For two whole years there was no rain, no mist, not even dew in the morning. 

As you can imagine, this didn’t make Elijah the most popular guy around. 

Still, God provided for Elijah through various methods: Ravens brought him food, angels brought him food, pagan widows brought him food. Elijah was a well-fed prophet in a land of famine. 

The most famous event in Elijah’s life was an event he arranged on the top of Mount Carmel. Jezebel had imported prophets and priests of the false god Baal and supported them with money from the national treasury. Elijah challenged these prophets to a showdown involving two bulls, two altars and two deities, YHWH and Baal. Which one would send fire from heaven to consume the bull on the altar? 

The prophets of Baal danced and shouted and howled and cut themselves trying to get Baal’s attention. But nothing happened. 

When it was his turn, Elijah doused his bull with water and prayed, no dancing, no shouting, no howling like a crazy man, no cutting. And fire came down from heaven, consuming the sacrifice and the altar, the stones supporting the altar and all the water that had collected on the ground. 

Sometimes God doesn’t leave much room for doubt! 

You’d think that after seeing God do such an amazing thing, Elijah would be ecstatic. But you’d be wrong. 

Being God’s spokesman can be a difficult job, and Elijah often felt scared and alone. Immediately after the big blowup with Baal, Jezebel took out a contract on Elijah’s life, and he ran to the mountains to ask God to kill him. Frankly, he got a little whiny about it. 

But God is good (even when we’re childish) and Elijah received the reassurance that he needed to continue in his calling. God let him know that he was not alone. God promised him that evil would never be allowed to have the last word. And God challenged Elijah to go and find a replacement for himself. In other words, God was saying that the world would go on, long after Ahab and Jezebel were gone, even after Elijah. 

God’s plan will continue to move forward, and He will continue to use regular people like us.

O Lord, I thank You that You can use ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. The source of the power is not from us, but from Your Holy Spirit. May I not set my sights low, but expect great and wonderful things from You, even things I do not understand. Sometimes I am gripped with fear and insecurity, and these are the times when I have taken my eyes off You. I want to be faithful to the many opportunities You have given me so that I will learn to look to You for all things. May I learn the wisdom of abiding in Christ as a branch abides in the vine, so that I will draw my life and impact from You instead of trying to create life on my own. I ask for Your Spirit to exhort, encourage, comfort and teach me in the times when I embrace the wisdom of obedience, and even in the times when I stray from You. 

In Jesus’s name, Amen