July 12 – Constant Need (1 Kings 19:1-18)

“Elijah was afraid and ran for His life.”(1 Kings 19:3)

IN WORD:
James was right when he wrote that “Elijah was a man just like us” (James 5:17). Though most of us don’t have a ministry the magnitude of Elijah’s, we have a fear reflex equal to his. Elijah had spent the last few days proving the power of God over the empty religion of Baal. He had been viewing eternal truth with his very human eyes. Suddenly, when Jezebel sought his life, he viewed his circumstances through those same lenses, but with unexpected fear. This time, those eyes didn’t see the glory of God, only the wrath of Jezebel. He was afraid — just like us.
What is it about us that can see eternal majesties at inspired moments and then can cower at ungodly threats at other moments? Does the Holy Spirit come and go that freely from our hearts? Perhaps it’s just that we are so thoroughly infused with human frailty that we can only get glimpses of divine power. Perhaps we are simply inconsistent in our devotion. Perhaps faith is a muscle that is sometimes, for some reason, reluctant to work. Though faith is, in a sense, our resting in God, we can still get tired. We pass seamlessly from anxiety to divine glory to anxiety again, hardly ever realizing what empowers us one day and not another.
A heart of wisdom will come to grips with such human inconsistencies. We must settle in our own minds the fact that we are never self-sufficient and always dependent. Great successes do not eliminate deep needs; it’s a fact of the human condition. We have to get used to it.

IN DEED:
We must battle constantly agains two relentless urges: the urge to think great victories should be followed by self-sufficiency; and the urge to let visible circumstances rule our thinking. Elijah, the great prophet of Israel, gave in to both. So do we. Frequently.
Never let the visible rule. Your victory yesterday does not decide your status today. Neither do your enemies. You need God desperately every day equally, regardless of how threatening — or how successful — things look.

“O God, never suffer us to think that we can stand by ourselves, and not need Thee.” -John Donne-