Do you ever have the sense that you are no match for the problems of our day? Alone and in a fight you didnt want?
On one side: you. Just you.
On the other side: them. You have a list of “them” â problems, changes, offenses, bills, fears, questions, deadlines. More and more of them.,
You versus them. You areâ¦
outnumbered
outpaced
outdone
outgunned
outmaneuvered
out there in the tempest all aloneÂ
The odds are against you. Its 850 to 1.
Those were the odds against Elijah. Who is this Old Testament man? And what in the world does his world have to do with you? More than you think.
His story is all about bad odds and odd gods. Their god is odd. The odds against him are bad. And Elijah is in the middle of it all.
His story is relevant because the challenges he faced are similar to yours. The ninth century B.C. was not a good era for the Jews. King after king was corrupt to the core. Less than a hundred years earlier, King Solomon had dedicated the glorious temple in Jerusalem. Some Jews were old enough to recall the golden era of faith. They were acquainted with the blessings of a God-centered culture. But over the course of a lifetime, the people drifted. By the time Elijah appeared on the scene, Israel was six decades and four kings deep in a cesspool of death and decadence. Ungodly idol worship. Unholy clergy. Unbridled evil. Untold sordid scandals. Sound like a good era in which to live?
Sound like the era in which we live?
Ive never been sympathetic to comments about “the good ol days.” I always dismissed such comments as romantic nostalgia.
Not any longer.
In a historical blink of an eye, we are shedding old beliefs and grasping for new ones. What was once unthinkable is acceptable today.
The world around us is changing.
Chaos. Anxiety. Exhaustion. Fear. The white-knuckling tumbles through this unpredictable life.
GREYS ANATOMY STAR SARAH DREW REVEALS PASTOR FATHERS ADVICE THAT TRANSFORMED HER LIFE
You know them. Not because of a gymnasium of bad dudes who want you dead, but because of the economy. The threat of nuclear war. School shootings. The homeless camps in your city. The state of your country. Its not just the bad news in the headlines that is weighing you down. Its also the bad news at the doctors office, the home office, the school administrators office. You do your best to stay afloat, digging your oar first this way, then that. But currents pull and torrents fall, and sometimes you wonder if youll survive.
Is it possible for a person of faith to have unbreakable courage in todays world?
Dont think for a second that the worldview of a Christ follower mirrors that of a nonbeliever. We are living in a culture that has little interest in people living out their faith. But we are not without help.
As much as any person in the Bible, Elijah affirms a positive answer to these questions: Can a person maintain faith in a world that has little? When a culture belittles belief, can a believer beget strength?
Yes!
His life urges us to take a page from the playbook of<a h
