Season 5 - Episode 10

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Elijah, God’s prophet in Israel, experienced many ups and downs. But no low was lower than the one we talked about on Sunday. And it was on the heels of a high that was higher than any other he experienced. It is, perhaps, his pursuit of and actions during the high that led to the low. I’ve been thinking about what Elijah was chasing and how learning from his mistake may help us in our lives. Let’s talk about that in this Covenant Weekly for November 4, 2025.

1 Kings chapter 18 begins with God telling Elijah, “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.” You see, it had been a few years since there had been rain. It was a long and dangerous drought. Elijah obeys God and presents himself to Ahab. And when he does, he issues a challenge. The challenge involves Ahab bringing all the prophets of the god Ba’al to a mountain, along with all of Israel invited to watch. There, the challenge is laid out. The prophets of Ba’al were to build an altar, put wood and a sacrifice on it, and then pray for Ba’al to start the fire. Elijah would then do the same, but pray to Yahweh.

Nowhere in the text does it say that God asked Elijah to do this showdown. But he does. And Elijah gets pretty cocky as a part of it. The prophets of Ba’al spend all day crying out to their god, but nothing happens. And Elijah starts mocking them, saying things like, “Maybe he went on vacation!” Or, “Maybe he’s in the bathroom and can’t hear you!” After a full day of nothing happening, Elijah steps up. He builds his altar and then absolutely soaks the bull, wood, stones, and area around the altar in water. Then he prays a simple prayer, and the whole thing goes up in flames. Even the rocks are burnt to ash.

Again, it doesn’t say God asked to do this showdown. All Elijah was told to do was go, present himself to Ahab, and tell him it would rain. But Elijah goes all in as he tries to show Yahweh’s power. But even now, it isn’t enough for Elijah. Riding this high, he has the people of Israel round up all 450 of Ba’al’s prophets and take them out to the nearby valley, where he arranges for their slaughter. Again, I think it is important to note that there is no indication that God asks for this to be done.

Only then does he tell Ahab that it is going to rain. And it eventually does, but all the other things Elijah has done get him on the wrong side of Ahab’s queen, Jezebel, who begins the chase to try to take Elijah’s life. And that is when he slides into the deep darkness, asking God to take his life.

I’ll preface these next thoughts by saying, I come from an ethnic background and family heritage that has a posture of “Keep calm and carry on!” Our backgrounds do shape how we read and interpret scripture. I don’t know how much of these thoughts come from my roots, compared to how much is fully the Spirit of God stirring something in me through this story.

That being said, as I watch Elijah step up to put on this big, dramatic show, with himself as the sole ringleader, I wonder how much of his crash on the other side is directly related. There are multiple parts to what is going on. Elijah was focused on one big, dramatic thing to try to get people’s attention. Also, he was flying solo.

Here, I see three ideas that are addressed in the Old Testament, but are 100% clear in the New Testament.

The first is perseverance. Our journey with God is a long one. In fact, it is longer than one lifetime! God tends to move far slower than we like, especially in our instant society. Paul tells us to “run the race with perseverance.” He’s talking about how we approach our life in relationship with God and others. It isn’t a sprint, focused on a huge burst of speed. It is a long and steady journey.

Second, God tends to move more subtly than we like. Elijah would learn this in the passage we read on Sunday. We tend to look for God in the windstorm, or the earthquake, or the fire. God, more often than not, speaks in the stillness, inviting us to draw near so we can speak and listen. There are glimpses of this in how Jesus taught us to pray and how we’re encouraged to live as Jesus followers. We pray for the quiet, faithful things like our daily bread. Think about the simplicity of the basic bread with some of the most basic, universal ingredients. And we’re invited to forgive each other. Later, when Paul was writing about what was important in the Christian community, he emphasized faith, hope, and love. Like a gentle flow of water over a rock, these have an incredible impact, but it happens over a long period of time.

Third, Elijah has been a solo operator, so he feels completely alone. When he slows down enough to draw near to God in 1 Kings 19, he is reminded that he is not alone and he needs to walk his journey alongside others. I wonder how much 1 Kings 18 may have been different if he had some people around him who could speak wisdom into his life. This idea of journeying together is central to how God invites us to live our lives as followers of Jesus. We are never meant to do this alone.

Eugene Peterson wrote a book exploring these ideas based on the Psalms of Ascent. The book title encapsulates the kind of life God invites us into. It is called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. I’ve come to believe that we will be our healthiest as a church if we can focus on living a long, faithful obedience, growing as we walk in the direction God calls us. If we can do that, we will probably have a few very memorable highlights along the way. But our health and vibrancy in Christ will probably transcend the culmination of the moments we remember.

And I wonder how much this could be true for other areas of life? What if we lived our lives as families, focusing on the faithful and slow life together rather than aiming for the big things! If we do, I’m sure some big things will come along the way. And my guess is they will mean more within the context of a longer, faithful life intentionally lived together. Might this be true if we did this as we seek to break free from harmful habits? AA seems to have this somewhat figured out. Weight loss and fitness groups are the same. Long, slow, patient progress is transformative.

I’ve been thinking about this in relation to our compassion work, both locally and in Cuba. We could exhaust our energy aiming to do one giant thing, but we’ll have nothing left once that is done. Whereas a long, slow investment can be truly transformative even if there is no giant splash or sudden visible impact.

I’ve actually witnessed this kind of good through some YouTubers I follow. Six years ago, they wanted to plan a big splash kind of fundraiser. Some wise people suggested if they raised $1,000,000 in a short time, that money would be used up quickly and have a short-term impact. Those wise voices suggested, instead, that they could take a long-term view. Rather than one giant burst of energy that was a great show, they could put out steady energy for a longer period of time, work more slowly for something, but have that thing be more sustainable. This week, less than six years later, they have raised over $25,000,000, and the ribbon was just cut on a maternal health hospital in Sierra Leone, which will transform maternal and infant health for decades, maybe even generations. Their countercultural decision to not chase the clicks and glory that came with one big campaign will save thousands of lives, see generations of medical professionals get trained, and transform communities.

We could, like Elijah, go beyond what God asks us for and try to build the next big thing. But few of those next big things last. Instead, may we learn what Elijah learned the hard way: to pay attention to the quiet stillness of God and to journey together on a long obedience in the same direction.