The Battle

“… He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life…” (1Kings 19:4)

I love the Old Testament. When I was a young girl, my grandmother gave me a book called “Beautiful Bible Stories.” I read it from cover to cover, until it was pretty worn. That began my love affair with the His Word. One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament is the story of Elijah and the Battle on Mount Carmel. It was EPIC!

Israel had fallen into serving pagan gods (Baal and Asherah) at the instigation of Jezebel, King Ahab’s wife. Because of their idolatry, God caused a drought to come upon the land – no rain at Elijah’s word. Elijah was a wanted man so God hid him until the appointed time and then sent him to Ahab to challenge Jezebel’s prophets to a contest. Winner takes all.

Elijah, the pagan prophets and all of Israel (including Ahab) gathered on Mount Carmel. The contest was simple – build your own altar, prepare your own sacrifice, pray your own prayer BUT your god had to light the fire. So the prophets of Jezebel (450 for Baal, 400 for Asherah) prepared their sacrifice per the instructions and prayed to their god – all morning long. Nothing happened. They grew more desperate and began to cut themselves, trying to invoke their god as Elijah taunted their efforts.

Finally, Elijah took his turn – he prepared his altar and his sacrifice and then dug a deep trench around the altar. He had water poured on the sacrifice several times, drenching the wood and the offering until the trench was full of water. And then he prayed. God immediately answered by fire which rained down from heaven onto the altar. It consumed the entire sacrifice and licked up the water in the ditch! “Our God IS God,” Israel began to chant. Elijah prayed again and God sent rain to relieve the land. He gave Elijah a supernatural burst of energy so that he outran the horses of King Ahab’s chariot. I imagine Elijah running, giddy with victory.

Meanwhile, Jezebel’s prophets had been destroyed at Elijah’s command – she did not take that news well. She swore vengeance on Elijah, sending him on the lam. Again. And this is where we catch up with Elijah. No longer riding the wave of euphoria, he’s feeling worn down, maligned, mistreated, unappreciated. Attacked. He’s tired. He just wants to give up. He’s so overwhelmed that he lies down under a tree and goes to sleep, praying for death to overtake him. At this point, God sends an angel to minister to him. The angel awakened Elijah and urged him to eat because “the journey was too great” for him. (I sometimes wonder – what does food prepared by an angel’s hand taste like? Hmmmm.)

On the strength of that meal, Elijah was able to travel for 40 days to Horeb, the mountain of God. There he spent the night in a cave where God spoke to him, asking, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah listed his complaints, all he had done for God and, to top it off, how Jezebel was looking to kill him. Besides that, he felt he was the only true servant of God left. So the Lord told Elijah to step outside so they could have a little chat. The wind tore up the side of the mountain but God wasn’t in the wind. And the mountain shook with an earthquake but God wasn’t in the earthquake. Fire manifested but He wasn’t to be found in the fire, either. Finally, a gentle whisper came, in the stillness, in the quiet, God spoke to Elijah.

This is where my own story picks up. I’d been taking stock of my life and feeling pretty good about my accomplishments. I was feeling victorious. But last week was rough. I ended the week trying to fight back tears as I thought about how I had been treated. Like Elijah, I thought: Wow – this is the thanks I get? After all of the major battles (epic, for me) that I’ve fought and won, this is how it ends? Not with a bang but with a whimper? It just didn’t seem fair. And the more I thought about it, the more it hurt. Mentally, I was curled up in the fetal position. Then I got angry. The more I thought about how I was wronged, the more self righteous my anger became; it encased me, turning me hard. It felt all wrong – evil and insidious.

When I realized it was morphing into something else, I knew I had to let it go. I had to. I’d already lashed out and hurt someone – it had become a weapon. It didn’t feel good. So instead of fighting back the tears, I released them. I journaled my pain. Instead of complaining about how right I was and how wrong the other party was, I cried out to God and asked him to take that pain away. So that I could think about it without hurting. So that I could move on. So that I wouldn’t lash out. So that it wouldn’t change me. Talk about a battle of epic proportions! The fight between good and evil, inside of me. Would I continue to nurture that hurt and let it fester until I felt justified in hurting someone else? Or would I use it as an opportunity to grow and become a better person?

As it turned out, I didn’t have to make a conscious decision. Thankfully, I found the comfort I was seeking in the tears that I shed. Crying brought clarity. As Miss Sophia said in The Color Purple, “All my life I had to fight!” In my case, I’ve fought to appear strong. I hated to cry or for people to see me cry. It felt weak. But as I’ve matured, I’ve learned to embrace tears. Rather than making me weak, I feel it makes me strong. It allows me to get rid of the garbage that hurts me. So I cried until I forgave the person who hurt me. I cried until I could think of it without crying more. I cried until it no longer mattered what they did or why. It only mattered that I didn’t let it change me.

That’s what I was fighting for – that right there, was the real battle. And, as with Elijah, God sent a friend – an “angel” – to minister to me, to provide comfort and encouragement because I was feeling too overwhelmed by this journey. And like Elijah, I found God when I needed him most, where I least expected him but right where I needed him to be.

Be blessed,

Loria