Elijah asked God to take his life. God let him sleep, and then fed him twice
There is a point where a person stops saying they are struggling and starts saying it would be better to be dead. If you have said it, you are not the first prophet to say it, and I mean that literally.
Elijah had just come off the biggest day of his working life. Fire on Mount Carmel, in front of the whole nation, four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal on the other side of the argument and God answering by fire in front of all of them. Then Jezebel sent a message saying she would have him killed by that hour tomorrow, and he ran.
He went a day's journey into the desert, sat under a juniper tree, and asked to die.
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
What God does not say
This is the part I want you to see, because it is what is missing that matters.
God does not tell him to think of his responsibilities. He does not remind him that his life is not his own to take. He does not point out that other people have it worse, or that a man who fronted Carmel should be made of stronger stuff. Any of those would fit comfortably into a sermon. None of them is in the chapter.
And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
He is allowed to sleep. He is fed. He goes back to sleep and is fed again. And the only explanation offered is that the journey is too great for him, which is not a rebuke. It is an accurate observation, spoken by heaven, without a syllable of blame attached.
The journey is too great for thee. That is not a rebuke. It is an accurate observation, spoken without a syllable of blame.
On 1 Kings 19:7
The lie about being alone
Later Elijah says the thing that despair always says, which is that he is the only one left. He is wrong by a factor of seven thousand, and God tells him so plainly rather than arguing him out of the feeling first.
That order matters. Sleep, food, food again, a quiet voice, and only then the correction. Not one word of it is earned. Elijah does nothing in that chapter except run away and lie down, and God does not withhold anything until he improves.
If this is you
I am not going to tell you your problems are small. I do not know what they are, and when somebody told me mine were small it did not help me either.
What I will tell you is that God's disposition toward you right now, at your worst, is the one in that chapter. Not disappointed. Not waiting for you to pull yourself together before he comes near. Jesus said something to men who were about to abandon him, and he said it in the future tense as a promise, not a condition.
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Tell one person. That is the whole ask. Not because you owe anybody an explanation, but because Elijah's recovery started with somebody else showing up while he was asleep, and it usually still does.
Premasis Satman
Founder and Executive Director of 5Talents Magazine, writing from Hyderabad. He has written the magazine's editorial column since the first issue in July 2012.
Despair · Grace · Elijah · Mental health · Editorial · Point of view