1 Kings 19:2-3, 15 – Self-pity and the Sovereignty of God
In The Kid, Bruce Willis plays a straight talking consultant. Whatever the differences between those he engages, he tends to have one particular target. He will ask, if they know what the number one killer of insert-your-demographic-here is, and the answer will always be self-pity.
Donald Miller gives the idea transference into the evangelical world. In Father Fiction, he diagnoses that self-pity keeps us from developing emotional muscle. But, even in Scripture, those revered figures we would discern have already demonstrated plenty of emotional muscle are subject to undermining their identity and effectiveness in Christ with self-pity.
Elijah's furry face is a prominent one to be flattened by this fugue of self-pity. Perhaps we can learn from the nature of the attack, and how the intrusive grace of God overcomes it.
2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.” 3 And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
He rejects the influence he has to dwell on those he hasn't impacted.
This is a welcome mat for self-pity. Elijah chooses to listen to Jezebel's messenger. He knows before the messenger opens his mouth that the words will be poison to his soul. Our ears don't come with a mechanism to close them, so perhaps we and Elijah cannot entirely choose whom to listen to. Yet, we can choose what to savor and meditate on.
Notice the switch of senses. When we go from involuntarily hearing words the enemy might use, to inviting them to like elsewhere in our person, trouble is afoot. Elijah heard, but 1 Kings 19:3 says that what really triggered his flight into self-pity was when he, "saw that."
He is turning Jezebel's evil words over and over in his mind. As he does, their impact expands. To make room in his relational RAM to brood over the words of this draining visitor, Elijah dismisses his own servant.
We can do likewise. We can belittle and reject the influence and authority God has given us, actually refusing to walk in them because God has not about us the particular victory we covet. Is our wit or insight failing to light up social media measures? Is our effectiveness not the buzz of the office in the way we would like?
Indeed, we are made of flesh like Elijah's in the respect that we don't get the influence we want, we tend to dismiss and boycott the influence we have. By God's sovereign glory and infinite patience, His Kingdom can advance by the direction and transformation of one servant at a time. God doesn't despise the small beginnings or the incremental daily progress, and neither should we.
God often builds and confirms efficacy one encounter at a time.
15 Then the Lord said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel.
As we skip down to verse 15 of 1 Kings 19, the same principle Elijah negated is confirmed. Dismiss one servant, God seems to say with resolute patience, and I will respond by showing you the impact a one-on-one encounter can have.
In His sovereign stubbornness, God does not trade His currency for the one Elijah's ego is craving. Elijah bemoans that the whole culture hasn't changed as a result of his ministry, but God's remedy for Elijah's binary and impatient thinking is subtle.
If you and I are short of anointing oil and audiences with those on the cusp of becoming earthly kings, we can still reframe the encounters we have. Surely, if we can look back on a phrase someone has dropped into our lives that has changed how we subsequently look at the world, or a timely gesture which has invigorated us to tackle a bigger challenge, then we can consider that God might do the same through us.
Malcolm Gladwell says cultures are changed by what he calls tipping points. In ways we know and ways we don't, we might come with faithful gestures and timely testimony, be used to change people, who change other people.
We can combine the evangelical authority of CS Lewis reminding us we have never met an ordinary person with the penetrating pith of GK Chesterton heralding that we are all kings in exile. Those individual encounters we have while grousing for seismic shifts in the culture may resound with more lasting and widespread transformation than we realize.
Our walk echoes at least as much as our talk.
The rest of 1 Kings 19:15 reads, "And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place." What a sweet affirmation and stirring challenge that is! If our drive-by encounters with future Kings can coil within them more change than we can possibly calculate, what might God do by intentional discipleship, what Eugene Peterson calls in his book title long progress in the same direction?
These are the people who will replace us when we get over the idea that the burden of changing thousands rests upon us. The people we abide with, and do ministry with a little at a time will come behind us.
They will have an impact our mortality won't allow. They will round out aspects of our temperament and, by God's grace, enter into God-glorifying relationships we could not. We will celebrate their victories from Heaven's vantage point, and meanwhile celebrate the rusting of the chains of self-pity which CANNOT hold us there.
Donald Miller gives the idea transference into the evangelical world. In Father Fiction, he diagnoses that self-pity keeps us from developing emotional muscle. But, even in Scripture, those revered figures we would discern have already demonstrated plenty of emotional muscle are subject to undermining their identity and effectiveness in Christ with self-pity.
Elijah's furry face is a prominent one to be flattened by this fugue of self-pity. Perhaps we can learn from the nature of the attack, and how the intrusive grace of God overcomes it.
2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.” 3 And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
He rejects the influence he has to dwell on those he hasn't impacted.
This is a welcome mat for self-pity. Elijah chooses to listen to Jezebel's messenger. He knows before the messenger opens his mouth that the words will be poison to his soul. Our ears don't come with a mechanism to close them, so perhaps we and Elijah cannot entirely choose whom to listen to. Yet, we can choose what to savor and meditate on.
Notice the switch of senses. When we go from involuntarily hearing words the enemy might use, to inviting them to like elsewhere in our person, trouble is afoot. Elijah heard, but 1 Kings 19:3 says that what really triggered his flight into self-pity was when he, "saw that."
He is turning Jezebel's evil words over and over in his mind. As he does, their impact expands. To make room in his relational RAM to brood over the words of this draining visitor, Elijah dismisses his own servant.
We can do likewise. We can belittle and reject the influence and authority God has given us, actually refusing to walk in them because God has not about us the particular victory we covet. Is our wit or insight failing to light up social media measures? Is our effectiveness not the buzz of the office in the way we would like?
Indeed, we are made of flesh like Elijah's in the respect that we don't get the influence we want, we tend to dismiss and boycott the influence we have. By God's sovereign glory and infinite patience, His Kingdom can advance by the direction and transformation of one servant at a time. God doesn't despise the small beginnings or the incremental daily progress, and neither should we.
God often builds and confirms efficacy one encounter at a time.
15 Then the Lord said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel.
As we skip down to verse 15 of 1 Kings 19, the same principle Elijah negated is confirmed. Dismiss one servant, God seems to say with resolute patience, and I will respond by showing you the impact a one-on-one encounter can have.
In His sovereign stubbornness, God does not trade His currency for the one Elijah's ego is craving. Elijah bemoans that the whole culture hasn't changed as a result of his ministry, but God's remedy for Elijah's binary and impatient thinking is subtle.
If you and I are short of anointing oil and audiences with those on the cusp of becoming earthly kings, we can still reframe the encounters we have. Surely, if we can look back on a phrase someone has dropped into our lives that has changed how we subsequently look at the world, or a timely gesture which has invigorated us to tackle a bigger challenge, then we can consider that God might do the same through us.
Malcolm Gladwell says cultures are changed by what he calls tipping points. In ways we know and ways we don't, we might come with faithful gestures and timely testimony, be used to change people, who change other people.
We can combine the evangelical authority of CS Lewis reminding us we have never met an ordinary person with the penetrating pith of GK Chesterton heralding that we are all kings in exile. Those individual encounters we have while grousing for seismic shifts in the culture may resound with more lasting and widespread transformation than we realize.
Our walk echoes at least as much as our talk.
The rest of 1 Kings 19:15 reads, "And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place." What a sweet affirmation and stirring challenge that is! If our drive-by encounters with future Kings can coil within them more change than we can possibly calculate, what might God do by intentional discipleship, what Eugene Peterson calls in his book title long progress in the same direction?
These are the people who will replace us when we get over the idea that the burden of changing thousands rests upon us. The people we abide with, and do ministry with a little at a time will come behind us.
They will have an impact our mortality won't allow. They will round out aspects of our temperament and, by God's grace, enter into God-glorifying relationships we could not. We will celebrate their victories from Heaven's vantage point, and meanwhile celebrate the rusting of the chains of self-pity which CANNOT hold us there.
Thanks for sharing! What a necessary lesson for how we lead and build people up.
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