It is so easy to feel a sense of sadness about the world around us and how far man has departed from God. Everywhere you go, most of what you see or hear are in direct conflict to God’s commands as written in scripture.
What personally annoys me most times is the ease at which people use the name of Christ and even the Holy Spirit as swear words. I must confess that it gets to me, especially when on social media or online chats, people actually type those swear words in capital letters. What’s even more annoying is the fact that the same people would not swear using the name of Mohammed, Buddha or others reverred by other religions.
This is just one of those examples of man walking and acting in opposition to God’s laws. More and more other acts and behaviours not compatible with the Christian faith are taking centre stage and most often than not, Christians are being vilified and sometimes even criminalised for taking a stand for what they believe.
It is easy to look around us and be disheartened by what we see or hear now. Most of us live in neighbourhoods where Christians are in the minority. It is not uncommon in many cases to be the only Christian living on your street and when you see this everyday, you just wonder what hope there is for the world.
A few months ago, I attended the Assemblies of God (Great Britain) conference and I was really inspired by what God is doing in the United Kingdom, a country that was once at the forefront of spreading the gospel of Christ but now encouraging practices that are contrary to the will of God although showing the world it is still Christian as showcased during King Charles’ coronation.
What inspired me at the conference was the number of people in our thousands, cutting across all ages, races and culture, coming together to pray and worship God. I was reminded then of how Elijah must have felt when he ran away from Jezebel. (1 Kings 19:3) The news of God’s miraculous act of setting fire to the altar filled with water, in response to Elijah’s prayer was still hot off the press. I can imagine Elijah’s faith and the others around him had received a boost as they relived how everything went down. I can imagine the conversations that must have gone on. “Did you see that?” “That was awesome!”
I have often wondered, “Why did Elijah run when he received the message from Jezebel in spite of everything that happened before then?” One answer that comes readily to my mind and which I understand quite so well is the fact that he saw himself in the minority. We all feel like that sometimes don’t we? You work in a place where you are the only Christian that you know, or live in a neighbourhood where you don’t know any other Christian or belong to a professional online community where no one other than yourself profess to be Christian.
With the benefit of having access to God’s word, it might be tempting for us to berate Elijah for running but if we put ourselves in his position, wouldn’t we have done the same? By the way, on Mount Carmel, there were 450 prophets of Baal against just one prophet of God - Elijah. He was so confident that God would prove himself that he even mocked the prophets of Baal. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!” 1 Kings 18:27. Then he went ahead to instruct people to pour gallons of water on the sacrifice before he prayed for God to send down fire. You would have expected him to make the environment conducive to fire but he wanted to leave no one in doubt that God could do the impossible.
There are times in my life that I am so confident of God’s ability to come through that in spite of the reality of what people were seeing and saying to me, I knew God would show up and boy, Did He show up!
Elijah came to that point where he felt he was the only prophet left. He became depressed and suicidal. When God asked him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9) He replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” (1 Kings 19:10) Does that sound familiar? You may not have been pushed to the point of feeling depressed or suicidal but when you look around, don’t you feel saddened by the spiritual state of affairs in your family, community and nation?
God took Elijah through a series of experiences and finally revealed to him that he was indeed not the only prophet left. In fact God had preserved 7000 prophets who had never worshipped Baal. How this must have encouraged Elijah! Knowing that he was not alone invigorated Elijah and he went on to deliver the message God sent him.
Regardless of what you may be seeing around you, be encouraged that you are not the only one. God has reserved you, me and million of others around the globe to do the work that He has committed into our hands. He is still working wonders to get the attention of man and He wants to us to partner with Him like Elijah did, to reveal His wonder to the world around us.
One of the strategies of the enemy is to isolate us and make us feel that there is nothing we can do to change the status quo. When we however come to the understanding that there are others God has reserved to do what He has called us to do, we become energised and encouraged to push through. My prayer is that the Lord will connect you to others that He has reserved so that you can know that you are not alone.
