The Buts of Life

I once took a biblical personality test for a counselor I was seeing.  He evaluated it, smiled and returned it to me, announcing, “You are an Elijah!” 

Needless to say, I was ecstatic.  For that moment, I thought perhaps I was not as messed up as I thought I was.  Elijah is one of my favorite Bible greats!  This was the man who drew down fire from Heaven and burned up 3000 of his opponents!  This was the man who prayed for drought and not a drop of rain fell for seven years!  This was the man who prayed for rain, and it fell out of one little cloud, enough to drench the entire desert!  This was the man taken up to Heaven in a chariot of fire, without having to die!  Few parallel him in the works he had done.  And for just an instant, only an instant, I secretly gloated. 

The counselor proceeded with his review of my biblical personality.  “Elijah was a great man of power.  But   There was that word.  “But” The word that always preceded not so great results. The word that, as a conjunction, connects something great to something not so great.

What were the “Buts?”   There was one really big one.  Whenever Elijah had accomplished something truly great, as commanded by God, he then went into an even greater depression and went crying into a corner.  Instead of feeling how awesome to be used by God, and feeling empowered by that, he felt fear, dejection, and in one instance, even ran into hiding from the weakest of his enemies.  At one point, he was so depressed that he asked God to let him die because he was afraid of a woman.

Wow.  What an eye-opener.  Not that it was something I wanted to see.  As the counselor went on in his assessment of my lack of backbone, he revealed that this one trait prevented me from moving forward, not just in life, but also spiritually.  There went my hopes of a golden chariot carrying me off in a cloud.  As I watched them fall to the floor, in itty-bitty pieces, I wanted to run and hide, and I hadn’t even finished out my hour yet.

When I got home, I was a mess, or maybe it is better said, that I had finally discovered how much of a mess I was.  I cried.  I prayed.  I got out my Bible and started to read about Elijah, just one more time to verify what I had just found out. 

There in black and white, in my face, was the evidence.  Yes, Elijah had been one of those people who fall apart after some big thing in their life.  But as I looked deeper, I found something else that my counselor had failed to reveal.  At those low points in his life, God came to rescue him. 

Digging even deeper, I found something so profound, I had to read it twice, even though I had read it many times before.  When Elijah was crying by the brook Cherith, and wanting to die, God sent a raven to bring bread to give him strength.  And when he was hiding in the wilderness, begging God to let him die, God sent an angel to feed him. The profundity that I found was that Elijah, mighty man of God, was just as I am.  A weak person at times, sometimes a little prideful, human but always in God’s tender care, mercy and love.

I am sure I will not be carried off to Heaven in a chariot of fire.  It is almost certain; I will never be the person that Elijah was in anything I accomplish.  But, because God loves me, I will make it through this life, tenderly cared for in my times of weakness, finally to enter the gates of Heaven. 

Copyright © 2011 by Susan Linn-Gomez. All Rights Reserved.Please take a moment to enjoy this video by Matthew West.  It speaks volumes!