22nd June 2025: Trinity 1

We’ve all had the experience of touching the highs and then facing normality, both in our secular and spiritual lives. Elijah had just come through the defeat of the prophets of Baal and Asherah where he and all of Israel had seen God move in a spectacular way. And at the end of 1 Kings 18 God sends the long waited for rain. Elijah is obviously on a real high because he manages to outrun Ahab all the way to Jezreel. He must have been full of God’s praises – Israel and Ahab had seen God’s power, seen the false prophets defeated, and fallen prostrate to declare, ‘The Lord, He is God!’ But then there was one of the Old Testament’s favourite baddies, Jezebel, issuing murderous threats against Elijah. And filled with the praises of God, confident in the awesome power of God, Elijah does the only thing open to man – he turns and runs for fear of his life into the desert. So low does he sink that he prays, ‘I’ve had enough, Lord. Take my life’. But there, in the depths of his despair, God meets with Elijah and provides for his basic needs – food and water. No great words of encouragement, just a simple, ‘Get up and eat’. Strengthened, Elijah takes himself further into the desert, to Horeb, the mountain of God. Here, twice God asks Elijah, ‘What are you doing here?’ And Elijah responds, rather like a little child, ‘That nasty lady wants to kill me’. And again, there are no words of encouragement, no soothing, ‘There, there’; just a set of instructions for Elijah to follow. This episode in Elijah’s life is a reminder to us that God doesn’t promise us a rose garden. He doesn’t walk ahead of us, clearing from the way anything that we might find tough, anything that might challenge what we believe. At no time did God say to Elijah, ‘Look, old boy, I just want you to go and have a little téte à téte with Ahab. Don’t worry, everything will be fine, just fine!’

Paul put it so well in Romans 8:
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Wherever we find ourselves, from the mountain top to the valley of the shadow of death, God is with us, gently bearing us, knowing well our feeble frame.
Rev Phil