Study 73
Delays and Pressures
‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’ (Proverbs 13:12), as anyone knows who has waited endlessly for the house to sell or for another job to turn up.
Often you can see why things happen to you. It’s raining hard. The bus shoots past the end of your road and you charge after it in hot pursuit. It stops, takes two passengers on board and pulls away just before you arrive. The rain slithers down your neck and your face reflects a mixture of pain and despair. You stand wearily under the bus shelter where a woman joins you and you fall into conversation. Before you know it, you’re telling her about Jesus and you’re thinking, ‘I know why I missed the bus. It’s a divine appointment. I’d miss any number of buses for a divine appointment.’
When you understand the reason why things happen, you’re happy. The problem arises when you stand at the bus stop for 45 minutes and no one else turns up. Or you’re admitted to hospital and you think, ‘I really want to witness to the other patients here’ but you feel so ill that it’s as much as you can do to ask for a glass of water. ‘What’s the point?’ you think. Perplexity saps your strength.
Living at today’s pace
Every generation encounters life’s pressures, but no generation has had to cope with stress as much as ours. Wherever you go you find people struggling to stay on top and packing as much as they can into every available minute.
By contemporary standards, the pace of life when Jesus was on earth was relatively steady. If he wanted to go from one place to another he had to walk, ride, or sail. Today one new invention replaces another and people can hardly keep up with what’s happening. My father remembered the first car to be driven through our home town. He was also alive when Concorde broke the sound barrier and men walked on the moon.
Christians are trying to glorify God in the midst of a hectic and lifestyle. It’s proved too demanding for many who, like Elijah, have suffered total inner collapse.
Wilderness
Elijah took his eyes off the Lord and fled into the wilderness, a despondent and frightened man. As he ran maybe his young servant’s questioning eyes probed his soul. ‘What are you doing, Elijah? Mount Carmel was great. The fire fell, and now the rain has come. But where are we going now?’ Perhaps Elijah responded, ‘Stop looking at me like that. I can’t stand it. Just stay here. I want to be alone.’ When you’re running away there are sometimes eyes that you’d rather not look into. Leaving his servant behind, Elijah ran into a physical and spiritual desert. He sat down under a broom tree. Having lost all sense of purpose, he felt condemned and worthless. It was then that the devil moved in to steal, kill and destroy. He appears on the scene when we’re at our weakest because at that time he has the greatest chance of success. And now, when Elijah was most vulnerable, the devil brought him to the brink of suicide. Elijah prayed that he might die.
‘I might as well be dead.’ How many of us have ever got that far? A single parent, at the end of her rope and close to ending her life, holds on only because she wonders: ‘What will happen to the children if I kill myself?’ A man, unemployed for many months, eventually concludes, ‘My life is totally purposeless. Why not end it all?’ A young couple, struggling with the credit crunch and relentlessly pursued by financiers asks, ‘Why are we here? We can’t overcome this problem. There’s no future. We might as well be dead.’
In 1 Samuel 30:13 we read of an Egyptian whose master abandoned him because he became sick. God, Elijah’s master, could easily have done the same. Indeed, if God were like us, Elijah would probably have been fired and Elisha taken on quickly to replace him. But this wasn’t God’s style.
True, Elijah had reached rock bottom, but God didn’t answer his suicide prayer, nor did he condemn him for his negative attitude. Instead he treated Elijah with great understanding, tenderness and compassion. When Elijah ran out of gas, he ran straight into grace! And grace never gives up, never ignores and never backs off. Whenever wounded people run into grace they run into the arms of God, who knows exactly what to do.
To Meditate On
God never abandons his people.
‘I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread … For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones’ (Ps. 37:25,28).
‘I will not leave you as orphans’ (John 14:18).
‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed’ (2 Cor. 4:9).
‘God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”’ (Heb. 13:5).
Food For Thought
Many Bible characters were frustrated by God’s delays:
The King of Israel (2 Kings 7:33)
David (Ps. 13)
Ethan (Ps. 89:46-52)
Asaph (Ps. 74:10,11)
Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:2-4)
Some Bible characters responded wrongly to delay:
Sarah’s impatience brought trouble (Gen. 16:1-6).
Saul’s impatience cost him the kingship (1 Sam. 13:8-14).
Some Bible characters reacted appropriately to delay:
Job waited patiently for God to intervene (Job 14:14).
David called on the Lord and waited expectantly (Ps. 5:3; 40:17; 141:1, 2).
Daniel prayed while he waited for God to fulfil his promise to Israel (Dan. 9:1-4, 19).
To Consider
God has a right time for everything (Is. 48:9; Rom. 5:6; 2 Thess. 2:6; Heb. 10:13).
Wise people wait for him.
Psalm 27:14; 37:7,34; 130:5,6; Is. 30:18; 64:4; Lam. 3:26; Rom. 8:23-25; 1 Cor. 4:5; Jude 1:21
To Do
If you’re feeling like Elijah, spend some time just being with God, sharing with him your real feelings and allowing him to pour his compassion into your life.
Alternatively (or in addition), pray for people (by name, or in general) who feel overwhelmed by life’s pressures.
To Be Inspired
‘Every Christian who struggles with depression struggles to keep their hope clear. There is nothing wrong with the object of their hope – Jesus Christ is not defective in any way whatsoever. But the view from the struggling Christian's heart of their objective hope could be obscured by disease and pain, the pressures of life, and by Satanic fiery darts shot against them … All discouragement and depression is related to the obscuring of our hope, and we need to get those clouds out of the way and fight like crazy to see clearly how precious Christ is.’
John Piper, Can a Christian be Depressed?
Ask Pastor John, December 19, 2007, www.DesiringGod.org
|
|
