In Romans 15:13, the apostle Paul prayed, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Paul didn’t pray that their circumstances would fill them with hope, or that the state of affairs in their lives would necessarily supply them with hope. He prayed they’d know hope in spite of their circumstances—that hope would so define them that they’d bring a sense of confidence and expectancy to their circumstances whatever they might be.
When we are possessed by an abiding sense of hope, we are able to press thru obstacles and persevere. But when hope is fleeting, it’s very easy to become discouraged and burned out.
With this pandemic, we are in a season where a number of us have lost some measure of hope. There are certain things we can do that will expand hope, and certain things that cause it to shrink. A prophet named Elijah—a man who suffered a remarkably sudden and incredibly deep collapse of hope but also experienced its rebirth—teaches us a great deal about how that can happen.
Elijah was a bold and courageous guy. In 1 Kings 18, we read where he singlehandedly took on 450 prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. He built the altar, dug the trenches, hauled the wood, butchered the bull, prayed down fire from heaven, and defeated Baal’s devotees. Then, under his inspired preaching, many previously resistant Israelites fell to the ground and worshipped God. He prophesied to King Ahab—a very depraved and wicked man—that a years-long drought would come to an end and, after ascending from the bottom of the Kidron Valley to the top of Mt. Carmel, prayed for rain which miraculously came. And then, if that wasn’t enough, he told the king to ride in his chariot to Jezreel—about 15 miles away—but ran ahead of him and beat him there. I mean, Elijah was high capacity—a serious overachiever. He outran a chariot!
King Ahab told his wife Jezebel what Elijah had done and she was infuriated. “So (she) sent a messenger to Elijah to say, ‘May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them’” (1 Kings 19:2). She wasn’t being literal—if so, she’d have had him arrested on the spot. This is intimidation language—the functional equivalent of saying, “If you keep this up, you’re going to hear from my lawyers!” I’m thinking, “This could be fun. Elijah has dealt with much tougher enemies than this troublesome lady and her puny, two-bit threat. He’s been a channel for the miracle-working power of God. She doesn’t know what she’s up against.”
But it doesn’t play out that way. “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19: 3-4). Beersheba was to Israel like Brownsville, Texas is to the United States—the furthest point south. From there Elijah, leaving his servant behind, crossed over into the back country—actions indicative of walking away from his ministry and the people God had called him to serve. And he says, “I’ve had it, God. I’m spent. I’m depleted. I have nothing left to give.” The death-defying triumphant, super-hero of Mt. Carmel has become a whiny, despondent crybaby who’s void of hope.
What happened? I think there are some hope killers at work in Elijah’s life and circumstances that contributed to what’s going on—factors and considerations that can do a number on us as well.
The first is fatigue. Imagine going through what Elijah went through at Mt. Carmel—the pressure … the emotional demand … the rush of adrenaline. He’s drained and worn out. “Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again” (1 Kings 19:5-6). Elijah is exhausted and God is like, “Hey, why don’t you get something to eat and take a nap?”
We all know what it’s like to get tired. As I look back over my years in pastoral ministry, there were seasons I was so tired of dealing with the junk it was like I was going thru the motions—the fallout from a staff resignation that was extremely disruptive … a faction of church folks finding fault with seemingly every little thing I did. I recently got a text from a pastor friend who lives in a state where churches haven’t opened up yet. It said something to the effect, “I’m surprised how snarky and set in their opinions folks can be regarding this covid-19 thing. To some of my folks I’m being reckless and negligent, and to others I’m either lacking faith or being duped by a conspiracy. I’m just tired of being in what feels like a no-win situation.”
Some years ago, I was introduced to a concept called the principle of the fulcrum. To explain … imagine a teeter totter with ministry on one side and your family on the other, and a fulcrum in the middle which is attempting to keep them balanced. When a weight is added to one side, the way to maintain balance is to move the fulcrum in that direction. But the problem is that many of us in ministry have permanently moved our fulcrum in the direction of ministry and never moved it back when the pressure has eased off. And when that’s the case, we’ll lose our judgment … our perspective … we’ll become more susceptible to temptation … and we’ll lose hope.” We will never experience ongoing spiritual renewal in a state of perpetual physical exhaustion. Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is stop and take a nap. For fatigue can eviscerate hope.
A second killer of hope is isolation. When God speaks to Elijah after the nap and snack, he says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9b). There’s a sense in which this is not only a question of physical location, but also spiritual condition. How did a bold, confident, faith-filled prophet become a despairing, hopeless, suicidal runaway? And … God knows we’ve each had to contend with that question one or twice. We’ve all found ourselves parked under a broom tree in a wasteland of a place and wondered, “How did I get here?”
Elijah says, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (1 Kings 19:10). Elijah’s a pitiful, wretched man, and that pathetic, cynical attitude swells in isolation.
Immediately thereafter, Elijah experienced a manifestation of God’s presence. There was a mighty wind, a great earthquake, a powerful fire and then a still small voice. And this memorable experience ends by God asking Elijah the exact same question—“What are you doing here?” And Elijah’s response is the exact same as his earlier one. Evidently he is so deep in his self-pity that he couldn’t break free.
So, what did God do? He ended Elijah’s self-imposed quarantine and sent him back to the people he’d been serving. He basically ended his time in isolation and said, “It’s time for you to re-engage with the surrounding world. You need to connect with some people who, regardless of what you think, are on the same team as you. You’re not near as alone as you think you are.”
Here’s the point as it relates to hope: Hope is not a solo activity—it’s a team sport. Isolation and seclusion typically weaken hope, while connection causes it to swell. Relationships with other people expand our horizons to where we’re not as prone to self-pity as we would be left to our own devices. They have a way of asking us questions and forcing us to wrestle with issues that remind us God is at work even though we can’t see it. They help us keep hope alive.
But there’s a third trigger for the loss of hope—and this was actually the trigger for Elijah’s undoing in this story—and that’s fear and worry. Not that he wasn’t fatigued nor isolated, for he was both. But it was worry that set off the negative spiral. He was afraid … anxious … and ran for his life.
The connection between hope and worry is a good news, bad news situation. The good news is hope and worry can co-exist. The bad news is it’s the only place hope can exist. Hope doesn’t mean we will avoid or escape worry. To live a life characterized by hope does not mean living a life that is void or free of worry. In fact, it works the exact opposite way.
Some time back I read about airmen during World War II and how they coped with fear. Many of them did so by giving up on hope—they believed they were eventually going to be shot down and die, so they resigned themselves to that fact. But when their furlough was approaching—when they only had a few missions left before their term was up—they started believing they might actually survive. And when they started hoping, they also started to worry.
In many ways hope and worry run on parallel tracks, which means that as long as we live by faith and hope we’ll also know doubt and fear. As long as we have something to hope for, we’ll also have something to worry about. For we live in a decaying, fallen world. But our hope is not in hope. Our hope is in God and our belief He is strong, wise, and good.
So God—in spite of Elijah’s fatigue, isolation, and worry—sent Him back. And what’s interesting is the story doesn’t tell us how Elijah felt about it. When he was sinking into the abyss, we got an earful about Elijah’s fear, self-pity, and desire to die. But now … is Elijah charged up? Confident? Hopeful? The text doesn’t say. All we know is he did what God asked him to do. And in many ways, that’s instructive. For quite often, in order to regain hope, we need to step over our feelings and do what God asks us to do regardless of our disposition or frame of mind. As someone once said, “It is much easier to act our way into a feeling than it is to feel our way into an action.”
Perhaps for some of us, we need to stop waiting to feel hope and start acting in hope. The very doing of something hopeful and expectant may just put us on the right track where hope will begin to reappear and return to our lives.