Well Done

Good Morning Friends,

All is going along here pretty well; so much so that I’ve resorted to what I do when not living life under the “Tyranny of the Urgent”: I’m getting serious again with my reading of the yearly ‘Through the Bible Plan’.

And because I’m negligent, I’m still back in the Old Testament.

I love the Old Testament, don’t get me wrong.  I think we need it to know who we are, but admittedly, it can get a bit dry between all the battles and the “so-in-so-begat-so-in-so”. But then as I wandered into I Kings, chapter 16, I began to perk up.

I love this story about Elijah and his troubled relationship with King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel. 1st Kings 18:16 has Elijah meeting Ahab, who even then was wanting to kill him. This led up to the amazing show down on Mt Carmel, where Elijah did some of his best work, calling down fire from Heaven and literally proving to the 400 Baal prophets that the Almighty God was the only God.  

Then he slaughtered all 400 of them and Jezebel really got mad!

But Elijah stayed there, waiting for his prophesy of rain to come true for Ahab to see. Then in 18:45, Elijah “Tucked his cloak into his belt” and ran for his life.  By now he’d heard the death threats from Jezebel and was motivated to keep moving, acting out of fear instead of faith and trying to put as much distance between him and her as possible.

Finally, he reached a broom tree and fell down, exhausted (19:4). When he could finally take a breath, he said to God, “I’ve had enough Lord. Take my life, I am no better than my ancestors!” And then he went to sleep.

Reading this, I wonder how many of us have ever felt this way?

We’re not Elijah, but I’m guessing we’ve all had times when we felt absolutely awesome.  We could do nothing wrong, and it was a heady feeling.

And then exhaustion, fear, misinformation etc. can get the best of us. What did God do?  He sent an Angel to give him hot bread and water, several times, then he helped him to a cave where he was able to regain his strength.

Finally, Elijah was able to hear God, not in the mind-blowing thunder or the earth-shattering earthquake, but in the still whisper of the wind.

God’s only words were “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

 The rest of the story talks about Elijah going at God’s command and deputizing the much younger Elisha to take over the bulk of the heavy lifting, therefore granting Elijah a well-deserved retirement.

This last week, one of our real warriors for the Lord went home. Sam and Rachael James, went out to Vietnam in the 60’s at the height of the Vietnam conflict. She was a registered nurse and he’d become a Christian in the Navy in Japan during the war.  Their hearts were always in Asia.  They took four children, a lot of hope and energy and did amazing things.  You can read about some of their adventures in several books they took time to write, one being  Servant on the Edge of History,  and The Making of A Servant.

It was time for Rachael to rest, to hear the still small whisper, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”.

We will miss her witty and practical guidance, leading us younger missionaries to expect to do great things.  

Till next time, 

Marsha

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