Study 15 - Pressures
Every generation encounters the pressures of life, but no generation has had to cope with stress as much as has ours. Wherever you go you find people struggling to stay on top, packing as much as they can into every available minute. Fred Mitchell, the former leader of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, had a plaque in his office. It read, ‘Beware the barrenness of a busy life.’
The Pace of Life
By contemporary standards, the pace of life in Jesus’ time on earth was relatively steady. If he wanted to go from one place to another, he’d have to walk, ride or sail. Today, one new invention replaces another and the pace of life races forward ever faster. My father remembered the first car to come through our home town. He was also alive when Concorde broke the sound barrier and when men walked on the moon.
Christians are trying to glorify God in the midst of this hectic experience. It has proved too demanding for many who, like Elijah, have suffered total collapse of the inner self. This computer, mobile and iPod generation has a severe headache. God views all this with tenderness and compassion.
Wilderness
Something made Elijah take his eyes of the Lord and he fled into the wilderness, a despondent and frightened man. As he ran, 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 – wonderful! But where are we going now?’ I can hear Elijah saying, ‘Stop looking at me like that. I can’t stand it. You stay here.’ Elijah went on alone. Sometimes when you’re running away there are eyes you’d rather not look into.
Leaving his servant behind, Elijah ran into a physical and spiritual desert. ‘He came to a broom tree, 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 (1 Kings 19:4). Having lost all sense of purpose, he felt condemned and worthless. It was then, when he was most vulnerable, that the devil moved in maliciously and brought him to the brink of suicide.
‘I might as well be dead.’ I wonder how many of us have ever got that far. A single parent, at the end of her tether and on the point of ending her life, holds on only because, ‘What would happen to the children if I killed myself?’ But she has long since given up on herself. A man, unemployed for many months, reaches the stage where he wonders, ‘My life is totally purposeless. Why not end it all?’ A young couple, in deep debt and relentlessly pursued by the financiers, question, ‘Why are we here? We can’t overcome this problem. There’s no future. We might as well be dead.’
The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). He appears on the scene when we are at our weakest because at that time he has the greatest chance of success.
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, restoring him to peace, joy and purpose.
Quote
‘When a tear is wept by you, think not your Father does not behold; for, “Like as a father pities his children so the Lord pities them that fear Him.” Your sigh is able to move the heart of Jehovah; your whisper can incline His ear unto you; your prayer can stay his hands; your faith can move his arm. Oh! Think not that God sits on high in an eternal slumber, taking no account of you.’
C.H. Spurgeon, The Sympathy of the Two Worlds, Sermon, Luke 15:10. |
