Re: Verse reading–1 Kings 19:1-18 (day three)
“Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”
Taking Elijah’s words at face value (instead of as a melodramatic attempt to gain God’s sympathy), one can hear a mind that has concluded that effectiveness has run its course. Elijah perhaps envisioned a national revival, a shift in loyalties––even at the very top––from idolatry to revelation. He had staked so much on the outcome of this showdown with the prophets of Baal that its failure to break a generations-long pattern of spiritual decay left him aimless and empty. He could not conceive of any further work; his prophetic imagination was spent. When what is longed for doesn’t come to pass, does that nullify your future in this life? Are you now an also-ran? Has God decided to make second-fiddle music with your life?
