You Are Stronger than You Think by Osteen Joel

Author:Osteen, Joel [Osteen, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2021-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

Live Balanced

In 1 Kings 18, the prophet Elijah asked King Ahab to bring out the four hundred and fifty false prophets that worshipped the god Baal. Elijah said to them, “Let’s have a contest to see whose God is real.” They both cut up sacrificial pieces of meat and placed them on the wood of separate altars. The God who started the wood on fire would be the true God. Elijah let the prophets of Baal go first. They prayed, danced, chanted hour after hour, louder and louder, but nothing happened. When it was Elijah’s turn, he called them all to come near him and asked them to gather around. When he prayed, fire came down from Heaven like a great bolt of lightning and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, and even the stone altar. Those false prophets fell facedown, frightened to death. In response, the people of Israel who saw it killed all the false prophets. It was a great victory for Elijah.

But when King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, heard what had happened to her false prophets, she was furious. As we read in Chapter 1, she sent word to Elijah, saying, “May the gods strike me and even kill me if I haven’t killed you by this time tomorrow.” He ended up running way into the desert to escape, finally so exhausted that he sat down under a tree. He was so depressed that he prayed that he would die. Elijah said, “God, I’ve had enough. I’m done. Take my life.”

Here is this incredible man of faith, one of the great heroes in the Bible. He had seen God raise a child from the dead, he’d prayed and it rained after a three-and-a-half year drought, he called down fire from Heaven, he had outrun Ahab’s chariot. But now because of one angry woman, he wanted to end his life. He was depressed, discouraged, not wanting to go on, and he fell asleep. While he was sleeping, an angel appeared and woke him up. Usually when an angel showed up, it was to open prison doors, or to part a Red Sea, or close the mouths of lions. But this angel woke him up and did something interesting. He said, “Elijah, get up and eat.” Elijah looked up and saw bread baking over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate the bread and drank the water, then went back to sleep. A little later, the angel came back, woke him up again, and said the same thing, “Get up and eat.” Elijah ate and drank some more. The Scripture says that strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days to his next assignment. His whole attitude had changed.

Why was Elijah depressed, discouraged, and not wanting to go on? He was tired, he was hungry, he was worn-out, and he needed some sleep. Sometimes when we’re weary, it’s not about a spiritual problem, it’s a physical problem. Elijah had just run for twenty-four hours, trying to get away from Jezebel.

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