I have recently started studying the life of Elijah and have found some very cool quirks about his story.  I’m taking this slow, so I am only past the “test of the gods” on mount Carmel found in 1 Kings chapter 18.  So here are a few things I found interesting…

• Elijah appears out of nowhere onto the scene, goes up to the King of the nation and essentially says “Because of you and your wife’s sins, there’s going to be a famine.  Ok, goodbye.”  Talk about guts!

• Although Elijah was God’s go to guy at that time, He still require Elijah to trust him one day at a time.  I mean, it would make sense to me that God would give Elijah this three or four year plan of what was going to happen and what he needed to do and send him on his way, but instead He took Elijah to a brook in the middle of nowhere and told him just to chill there for a while; nothing else.  There God took care of him one day at a time.  I think there is a lesson there.

• The story of the widow and her son just kills me.  God sends Elijah to her after about a year of so at the brook, and he walk up to her and asks for some food.  Her response is this “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” Talk about a morbid outlook.

• I think the faith of the widow is out standing and we can learn a lot from a woman who actual name is not mentioned because she know that this meal will be her and her son’s last, she still shares it.  And the only thing she had to go on was Elijah word.  Maybe the lesson is that God has to get us to a point of saying “Ah what heck, I have no other options so I might as well try this insane idea and have some faith because that’s all I have left.”  Scary thought.

• Lastly, the mount Carmel battle.  Talk about a main event fight!  I have this mental picture of Elijah being so sure of what God had told him to do that he just chilled on a fold out lawn chair with a cold drink and shades while the “prophets” of Baal yelled and danced.  His mocking is slightly hilarious, even saying that maybe he is in the restroom. Funny.  Then when all is said and done, things get serious and the servant of the one true God takes stage, sets his handicaps by pouring several barrels of water over the entire altar (which if you’re curious as to why, fire and water does not mix, so this was an all or nothing attempt) and prayed a simple prayer; to which God sent a fire from the heavens and consumed the entire offering, rocks, water and all.

• What I learn from this event is that when we are in the will of God, depending on him for our daily substance much like Elijah had learned, all it takes is a simple pray to get the job accomplished.  Many times we pray for things that we see as right or justified and in the end wonder what happened, but when we surrender to a daily, constant trust in God, the job gets done because it is the job God has given to us, not what we have given to God.  

• I read two quotes from a guy on this story and they really made me think: 

 - The Lord leads His faithful one step at a time as they tune their hearts to his words.

- People who have proved themselves faithful with a few things in small places can be trusted by the Lord with many things before many people in the bigger places.