But he (Elijah) himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers." --1 Kings 19:4Have you ever felt like just giving up? I think we all have, at some point or another. There comes a time when you feel like it's not worth it any more, and you simply want to throw your hands up and walk away.
Sometimes walking away may be the best thing you can do. If you are involved in sinful, immoral, or unethical/illegal behavior, turning away from destructive behaviors is not quitting, it is called repentance. God will honor that, if He is guiding you to walk in a different direction.
Unfortunately, we do not always go to God with those decisions. In hindsight, quitting may not have been the best thing for us. I can think of some examples in my family history.
The story goes that my grandfather heard of a government land grant program in the 1930s or 1940s. The US government was promoting agriculture, especially in the Western states. If an applicant would stay on the land for four years, then the land would become theirs; the government would deed it to the grantee. So my grandfather moved to eastern New Mexico, and took up residence on about 400 acres of land there. He tried farming it, but the yields were quite low. Three and a half years in, he took stock of the situation: the land was no good for farming, it wouldn't support him and his family, it was costing more in maintenance and upkeep than it was bringing in. Furthermore, he had no real friends or family there, he was isolated. Finally, there was an upswing in demand for factory workers in the cities as the US began its military buildup leading into World War II. Given all this information, it seemed good for him to abandon the claim, move to San Antonio, and get a factory job.
I don't know if my grandfather prayed about this decision. I do know that within 10 years of his giving up those 400 acres, they discovered oil on that land. My grandfather could have been filthy rich if he had found a way to stay on the land for another six months.
My father wanted to move out of the house and go out on his own at a very young age. He convinced his parents to sign a waiver so that he could join the Marines as a 17 year old. Over the next four years he was promoted to Sergeant, and was for a time a drill instructor. He told me that he was approached by his CO about enrolling in Officer Candidate School. They thought he might have a good shot at becoming a commissioned officer. Unfortunately, the next OCS class would not start for another six months, and my dad was scheduled to end his initial four-year stint in just a couple of months. He said he did not think he wanted to re-up in the Marine Corps, then just hang around for four more months waiting for OCS training. He decided to pass on an extended military career as a potential Marine Corps officer. He could have retired after 18 years will a full military pension, and at age 35 he could have gone on to a second career.
I am pretty sure my dad did not pray about this decision. It may not have been God's will for him to continue in the military--the conflict in Viet Nam had not yet started, and he might have been sent over there. He may have been a war hero, we'll never know. His thinking, though, was that he did not want to wait another four months for the opportunity to come to fruition.
I was a music major in college. I loved to sing, and I could read music pretty well. I did have some trouble learning piano, and that was a requirement. Also, my original voice teacher retired after my sophomore year, and the new voice teacher to whom I was assigned did not like my vocal technique, and I was forced to repeat a semester. The news came as I was signing up for classes my senior year that I would not have enough credits to graduate from the School of Music by the end of four years. I had the choice of sticking with it, fulfilling all the requirements as a "fifth year senior"; or I could change my major, go with a "General Studies" curriculum, and graduate with my class. I chose the latter. I didn't want to endure undergraduate work one more year. I was pretty sick of living in the small college town I had been in for four years. I was engaged to a pretty young Sophomore, and I was anxious to support her and perhaps start a family.
I don't remember praying about this decision. I thought it was the logical thing to do--everything I wanted to do next I could do with a General Studies degree. I could go on to graduate school, I could get married, I could get a full time job. As it turns out, I never used my graduate degree for anything. The marriage didn't last--she went back to school and left me for a graduate assistant. The full time job I got did not turn into a career for me. Things might have been different if I had stayed with my original degree plan for one more year.
You may have a similar story in your background. In hindsight, things definitely would have been different had you chosen another path, maybe for the better. Thankfully, God is able to make all things (including our bad decisions or our quitting too soon) work together for our good and for His glory (see Romans 8:28). Never lose sight of that.
Many people do lose sight of that fact. In the examples I cited from my own family history, the decisions had a bearing on potential wealth, glory, or even happiness; but in all those situations, life continued on. For many, the struggles are not just life altering, but potentially life-ending. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there are at least 123 suicides in the United States each day. That's an average of one every eleven and a half minutes. For every "successful" suicide, there are 25 unsuccessful attempts.
Last Sunday, the Associate Pastor of my church cited statistics that said the highest rate of suicide in our county occurred within a three mile radius of our church building. That's staggering! As we come together for fellowship and worship, praising God and enjoying communion with other believers, the people around us are losing all hope, and are literally dying.
What can we do? We can go and find hurting people in the highways and hedges. We can combat isolationist tendencies, and share hope and healing where we can. We can identify those whose depression is deep-seated, and try to get them professional help. Most of all, we can pray.
What would you say to someone who came to you at a vulnerable moment in their lives, and admitted to having suicidal thoughts? The Bible speaks to this very situation, and it would be beneficial for us to be aware of it. I know of two people in the Bible who actually committed suicide. One was King Saul, who found himself overrun by the Philistine army. 1 Samuel 31 tells of Israel losing this battle, and of Jonathan (Saul's son) being killed on the battlefield. Saul and his lieutenant came under fire from the enemy archers, and Saul was wounded.
As an aside, this chapter comes right on the heels of chapter 30, where we learned of David's successful campaign against the Amalakites, another of Israel's enemies. David had God's blessing; Saul did not. David inquired of the Lord before engaging in battle; Saul had not. David was victorious; Saul was not. So Saul, having lost his son and half his army, seeing himself wounded and defeated, fell on his own sword and killed himself. He told his lieutenant that it would be better to die there than to have the Philistines "make sport of me." Perhaps if he had called upon God, as David had, God might have heard him and had compassion. God could have turned the battle around, but He was not invited. I don't want to simplify things too much here, but God will not intervene where He is not welcomed.
The other suicide in the Bible is the disciple Judas. After Judas betrayed Jesus, he went to the Temple and tried to undo it. The Jews had given Judas 30 pieces of silver to show them where Jesus was; Judas tried to give the money back, as if they would release Jesus and things could go back to the way they were before. That didn't happen, and Judas lost all hope. He died before he could witness the resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps if he had waited three more days, Jesus might have forgiven him personally, in bodily form.
I think, though, that people who have lost all hope don't like to deal in "what-if's". They can't see potential like those of us can who do have hope. They can't relate to suppositions about what might have happened if someone had not gone through with self destructive behavior. I think that's why the Bible also includes stories about real people who lost hope, but did call on God, and who had their lives spared from self-harm. Two immediately come to mind.
The first was Elijah, the great prophet of God. 1 Kings 18 tells of a mighty miracle God performed through Elijah. The king and most of the Israelites worshiped the false god Baal. Elijah proposed a test: they would set up two altars, one for Baal, and another for the true God. Whichever deity that would answer prayers by sending fire from the heavens would be shown to be the true God. You can read the story. Baal didn't answer. God sent fire, and consumed not only the altar before Elijah, but also consumed the altar set before the prophets of Baal. This resulted in many in Israel returning to the true God. Not the king, however. The king sent threats that he would have Elijah killed. Elijah was deathly afraid, and literally ran for his life.
Exhausted, he sat under a Juniper tree and prayed that God would kill him, or give Elijah permission to kill himself. Elijah fell asleep, and when he awoke, he saw that God had sent an angel. The angel was preparing food for him to eat, and encouraging him to keep going. After his physical needs were met, Elijah heard God's voice. God gave him a kind of object lesson: Elijah's complaint was that he thought he was the only one left in Israel who feared God. What can one man do? What difference can one lonely voice make in a world of chaos, in a cacophony of opposing messages?
God's answer is interesting. He set Elijah up on a mountain, and sent an earthquake. Elijah knew that God was not in the earthquake. God sent a mighty, rushing wind, like a hurricane. Elijah knew God was not in the wind. God sent fire and smoke, but Elijah knew God was not in the fire. Finally, God spoke in a still, small voice, and Elijah knew that it was the Lord. The lesson was that God can work in the smallest, most quiet way, even in the midst of noise from the fire and wind and earthquake. So Elijah should not worry that he is only one man, with one small voice speaking against kings and princes and prophets and priests, all with a bigger megaphone than he. Besides, God told him, there were still 700 people in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal, who were faithful to the One True God. He was not alone.
The other story is from Jonah chapter 4. Jonah had tried to run from God, but God sent a storm to slow the ship sailing the opposite direction. Jonah had spent three days in the belly of a great fish, who took him back to where he started and vomited Jonah back onto the dry land. Finally, Jonah brought the word of the Lord to Nineveh, however begrudgingly, and the people heard the message and repented. Jonah, however, sat on a hillside wishing that God would send fire from heaven to consume the people. The sun became unbearably hot, and Jonah wished he was dead. His mortal enemies had been spared by God; the message that he had preached, a message of destruction, had not come to pass. What good was he? He hadn't been obedient to God. He had prophesied one thing, and something totally different had actually happened. So what good was he? He might as well be dead, because his identity and purpose had been irreparably compromised.
Again, God saw to his physical need by sending a plant to shade Jonah. Then He gave Jonah and object lesson: he sent a worm to destroy the plant. God listened to Jonah complain about the plant dying, then He made this point--Jonah was more concerned about a stupid plant than he was about people. One plant died, and Jonah had a fit. Why didn't he care as much about the 120,000 people in Nineveh that had been spared?
If you or I come upon someone in a crisis, who is crying out for help and seems to be longing for death over life, we can do the same three things that God did for both Elijah and Jonah. First, we can see to their physical needs. If they are tired, we can encourage them to rest; if they are hungry, we can give them food; if they have a need, we must do whatever we can to meet that physical need. Jesus encouraged His followers to treat needy people as if they were Christ Himself: "For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me." (Matthew 25:35-36). James 2:15 and 16 encourages us to reveal our faith through actions: "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warm and filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?"
Second, we can listen to them. People are crying out, yet no one truly hears them. That is why they feel alone. Isolation kills relationships, yet when people feel alone they tend to isolate themselves even more. They stop talking if they feel like no one is listening. In our examples from the lives of Elijah and Jonah, God listened to those men, and He heard their hearts. If we are the Body of Christ, then we must listen as He listened. We must hear the heart-cry of the helpless and the hopeless.
Third, we must bring a message from God's heart. Not a message of "be warm and filled", not "hey, get over it," but rather a message that says God has sent someone to meet their unique need at this point in time. We may not be able to preach a sermon to them, but we can show them God's hand in other real-life situations. Remember, God used object lessons to reach Elijah and Jonah. He took things they knew, experiences they'd had, and drew spiritual truths out of them. We can encourage other broken people by being vulnerable, by sharing our own brokenness and showing how God has healed us, how He has made Himself real to us. God may have brought us out of a very similar situation to the one that our friend who has lost all hope is going through. All we have to do is share what God did for us. First-hand experience with loss, with poverty, with abuse, with illness--whatever we have gone through, others are going through it, too. If God can bring you through your crisis, He can certainly do the same for others that we meet, that we are called to minister to.
We don't have to be perfect. Thankfully, God can use broken vessels. We just need to be available. If God can use a worm to teach Jonah, he can sure use us.
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