Balance

Do you ever get the sense that God came through for you just to shut you up?

While listening to Sunday’s message, I began to feel this way. I was feeling burnt out and engaged in emotional reasoning, much like Elijah in his journey to Horeb that we explored from 1 Kings 19.

I could tell a lot of stories in my life that all end in the phrase, “But then the money didn’t work out for that.”  At least twice in the past three years I’ve started saving up to buy a motorcycle, but then an appliance broke down that I couldn’t fix on my own, or a medical visit produced extra bills I hadn’t expected. In my small press publishing days I would reach deals to split the cost of a joint print run or collaborate on a project, but then I came through on my half of the job and my partner didn’t.

I was having another predicament just like this one on Sunday, and trying not to meditate on how once again the money wasn’t working out, when suddenly my wife had to take a phone call and left the service. When she returned, it seemed she had landed an unexpected new job that would pay enough to get us through the current scrape. Just like that, without fanfare or foreshadowing.

Well, that broke up my whole train of negative thought. And that feat, in itself, was better for me than the financial windfall. In Psalm 34:9-10 it states, “Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” As this verse describes, God constantly shows us his faithfulness, rekindles our trust in Him and reminds to get out of the solitude of our own thoughts, as He did with Elijah in 1 Kings 19.

As we heard on Sunday, symptoms of burnout include undervaluing both our own worth and our work, overstating our own problems and abdicating our own dreams.  And there’s a four-point plan right in Elijah’s encounter with God after the storm that gets us back on track: rest and refresh, let go of our own frustrations, focus once again on God and not ourselves, and resume serving others.

We can get into emotional reasoning during isolation and burnout, and our minds start making a case for whatever maudlin self-delusion of the moment seems to feel true, rather than what faith and a clear mind would show us actually is true. And it doesn’t even take long to get into this rut –when I’ve studied this passage before it’s always amuses me how Elijah gets this low so soon after prevailing in the test of fire and routing the prophets of Baal. And shortly after he laments to the Lord all in earnest that “I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life,” (1 Kings 19:14), the Lord responds, “I have reserved unto Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him,” (1 Kings 19:18). 

Nothing like a little injection of factual truth to disrupt Elijah's stewing and ruminating. And this week, I can relate.

If you, too, find yourself in the same frame of mind as Elijah is in this portion of scripture-- because many of us will sooner or later -- I challenge you to get quiet for a minute. Instead of complaining, open your ears to hear what God is may be trying to tell you over your own noise.

Written by: Chad Halcom

Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant