One of the reasons I love the Bible is that it is not afraid
of the truth, even the sometimes sordid truth about its heroes.
Abraham was a liar. Jacob was a thief. Moses had a murderous
temper. King David was an adulterer. Heroes of the faith,
everyone of them, but the Bible refuses to gloss over their
shortcomings. It shows them "warts and all." We find another
"wart" in our lesson from I Kings - one of the greatest of the
prophets - Elijah.
To briefly recount the background of the story, three years
before, at the urging of the Lord, Elijah had announced a drought
as punishment on the nation of Israel for its idolatry and
worship of the Baals which had been instigated by the wicked
Queen Jezebel. As you recall from your Sunday School lessons, a
contest was arranged on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the
prophets of Baal to determine once and for all just who was the
REAL God of Israel. Each would build an altar for their god and
then a sacrifice would be made. The god who answered by fire,
consuming the sacrifice, would be the winner. All day long the
prophets of Baal danced and prayed, sang and prayed, whined and
prayed, all without result. Finally, at the end of the day,
Elijah prayed his relatively short prayer and God answered by
fire! BIG time! Yahweh wins! Elijah wins! YES!
Now, the prophets of the Baals had been exterminated, the
rains have begun again, and except for the very real threat of
retribution from Jezebel, Elijah should have been feeling on top
of the world.
But no - he was in a blue funk. He went out into the
wilderness, away from all human contact, slumped down under a
tree and said, "All right, Lord, enough is enough. I have had it
with this prophet business. I have been on the front lines for
you my entire life. I have been the leader of the pack in every
one of your causes, on call 24/7, worked my fingers to the bone.
And what do I get for it? Jezebel has a contract out on me. Why
should I bother? The people will never REALLY listen. All they
care about is themselves. It has been that way for generations
and will ALWAYS be that way. I break my neck to do what is
right, to try to get THEM to do what is right, but it never
works. I am burned up and burned out. Like the guy in that old
movie, `I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.'
Just kill me now and get it over with. I have HAD IT!"
Quite a speech. One might expect that the Lord would
respond with something like, "There, there, boy. Chill out.
It's all right. You are doing a fine job. Don't be so
depressed. It will all work out in the end." But the Lord does
not say that. The Lord does not say anything. Just silence.
You can picture the prophet looking around him after that
emotional volcanic eruption...the scrub brush, the tree he was
leaning against, the pale blue desert sky. "Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?" Finally, Elijah took that time-honored way
of temporary escape - he fell asleep.
Why should Elijah be so terribly depressed? After all, as
much as anyone alive he had seen the evidence of God's power. He
had watched as God provided an unending supply of food for the
poor family that had offered him hospitality for three years. He
had participated in God's restoration to life of a desperately
ill young boy. He had been God's field commander in that great
victory on Mt. Carmel. One would expect that Elijah of all
people would never hit bottom. But he did.
What causes such depression? If Elijah is instructive, a
good part of the answer is sheer frustration.
I have told you this before, but it bears repeating. Many
years ago after a funeral for one of the most faithful leaders in
my father's congregation and long before I ever went into the
ministry, I asked Dad if that was the toughest thing about being
a pastor...having to bury one of the most dedicated saints of the
church. He said, "No, not at all. After all, a Christian
funeral is a celebration of victory. The toughest thing about
being a minister," he said, "is going to a board or committee
meeting, watching people act so absolutely contrary to everything
you have been trying to preach and teach, and wondering whether
or not you have made a nickel's worth of difference in anyone's
life." Elijah probably would have said AMEN.
Of course, preachers are not the only ones who have to deal
with frustration and despair. People break their necks to do the
best possible job and then find they are out of work because a
corporate raider has taken over the company and is selling all
the assets. A father and mother try to give their youngsters a
proper upbringing but are now crazy with worry because their
teenage son has been arrested for selling drugs. A husband sits
quietly by, unable to do anything, as his wife slowly wastes
away, the victim of the inexorable advance of an incurable
disease. A marriage that had started with such promise of
excitement years ago has now drifted into day after day of mutual
boredom. A marriage that STAYED wonderful through the years is
now over, ended by the cold hand of death, leaving the survivor
to wonder if there will ever again be any laughter in life. A
list like that could go on and on. Psychology Today(1) pointed out
years ago that the average American is ten times more likely to
be depressed than his father and 20 times more likely to be
depressed than his grandfather. As Thoreau once wrote, "The mass
of men lead lives of quiet desperation," and these days it is
worse than ever. Oh, Elijah, we hear you calling.
Is there any word from the Lord on this? Is anybody there?
Does anybody care? As I said at the beginning, one of the
reasons I love the Bible is that it refuses to be blind to human
frailty, even among the heroes of the faith. But another reason
is that the Bible DOES have a word from the Lord. It offers
strength to overcome the frailty, in this case the feelings of
depression that sometimes come to even the strongest of us.
Please do not misunderstand - what I am offering this morning is
not some automatic cure-all (because as that horrible situation
in Houston this week with a mother murdering her five children
demonstrates, some depressions need professional attention). So
saying, for the vast majority of feelings of despair and
hopelessness there are some practical remedies that will work.
See what happens with Elijah. "All at once an angel touched
him and said, 'Get up and eat.' He looked around, and there by
his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of
water. He ate and drank and then lay down again." It hardly
comes as a surprise that proper nutrition and rest are critical
to a decent mental attitude. Overstressed, underpaid workaholics
will inevitably have trouble. Elijah's body and mind were an
integrated whole. His body needed to be right before his mind
could be right.
Then there is another step. When Elijah woke up again, the
narrative says, "Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty
days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of
God." The message here is not to overcome depression by running
away from problems or even going off on an extended vacation.
What is significant is Elijah's destination. Mt. Horeb was the
place where Moses first met God in the burning bush. It was also
known as Sinai, the place where God gave the Law. For Elijah, a
trip to that holy mountain was a pilgrimage to his spiritual
roots...a place to rekindle memories, to recall all God had done
throughout history. The mountain was a setting that would force
Elijah to think about something other than himself.
More was needed, of course. The next step was conversation
with the Lord - a prayer, if you will. Elijah set up camp in a
cave, and as scripture has it, "the word of the Lord came to him:
"What are you doing here, Elijah?"
One more time, Elijah explodes. "Lord, I have done my part.
I did everything I was supposed to, but I have not made a
nickel's worth of difference. The people just keep on keeping
on. And for all my trouble, as usual, good old Elijah is caught
with his butt in a sling again - Jezebel wants to carve me like a
Christmas turkey. When you're up to your neck in alligators,
it's hard to think about draining the swamp...and, as you know,
Lord, I cleaned that up. I am tired of this!" Quite a prayer.
Have you ever prayed one like that? There is nothing the
matter with it. It is not as if God does not already know how we
feel. God knows. But letting it all hang out can be
therapeutic. As someone has said, "A trouble shared is a trouble
cut in half." That may overstate the case, but the words of the
hymn writer surely do not:
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.(2)
Then there is another step in bouncing back. God told
Elijah, "'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the
Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Then a great and
powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks
before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind
there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the
fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." The message
for those who are occasionally deeply depressed is that furious
activity - wind, earthquake, fire - is not the answer. A time is
needed for quiet reflection, to FEEL the Lord's presence.
To be sure, there is one more step. Simply getting back to
your roots is not enough. The Lord's initial question is
repeated: "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Once more the
prophet makes his excuses, but this time God responds with some
work for him to do.
I read somewhere about some aspiring psychiatrists who were
attending their first class on emotional extremes. The professor
began, "Mr. Jones, just to establish some parameters, what is the
opposite of joy?"
"Sadness," said the student.
"And the opposite of depression, Ms. Smith?"
She thought a moment and said, "Elation."
"How about the opposite of woe, Mr. Brown?"
The student replied, "I believe, sir, that is GIDDYUP."(3)
Elijah's experience says Mr. Brown is right on the button.
A blue funk will never be dispelled by sitting off somewhere and
feeling sorry for ourselves. Get back to the real world and get
busy with your normal tasks.
One brief aside in all this. Do you remember Elijah's claim
that "I am the only one left," the last faithful person on earth?
Well, the Lord lets him know that that is not true. There are
thousands more who are on your team. Two things should be noted:
first, when you are deep in the pits, you rarely think straight
and tend to exaggerate your predicament; and second, despite all
evidence to the contrary, you DO have friends out there, people
who are supportive, who care, and are willing to see you through.
To be sure, Elijah is not the only person in scripture who
at times was depressed. It happened to Jesus. He was frustrated
that even his closest disciples often misunderstood him. He
stood on a hill overlooking Jerusalem one day and broke into
tears because the people would not listen. One night, as he
prayed in a garden, his distress was so great that scripture says
he sweat great drops of blood and begged for escape. The word
from the Lord in all this is that deep depression occasionally
happens to the very best. The story of Elijah offers a
prescription for dealing with it.
I am grateful that I have never had much problem with
depression. Only once actually...in a church I served some years
ago. One thing after another began to work on me...money
problems, a slowdown in membership growth, too many meetings, not
enough time with family, even termites in the Education Building.
It all finally got me down. On top of that was what one author
has called "seemstress"(4) - the stress of trying to put the best
face on everything, conveying the message that everything is all
right when, deep in your heart, you KNOW that it is all going to
hell in a hand basket. I tried to keep on that happy face and
look on the bright side through it all, but that became very
wearing. I remember going on vacation that year, hoping that
some time away would snap me out of it, but it did not. I have
always loved my work, but for the first time in my life, when a
vacation was over, I did not want to come back. My sojourn in
the wilderness that year only left me asking, "Is anybody there?
Does anybody care?"
I began to get the answer from Elijah's story. Do a better
job taking care of myself physically (eating right, proper rest,
exercise, take my day off when I was supposed to, and so on -
which, as my staff continually reminds me, is a lesson I STILL
have not really learned). Do not neglect my roots - set time
aside for things that are ultimately important (quiet time for
prayer, study, meditation) and for certain people who are equally
important, (an incredibly wonderful wife and two of the best
children a father has ever had). I was never particularly
tempted to sit and feel sorry for myself but Elijah's program of
therapy says, if you ARE tempted, that IS something to be on
guard against. Finally, I had to realize that things were
probably not so bleak as I had been inclined to think. And I had
to remember that I was not alone - there were and ARE caring and
supportive friends, and especially the one scripture calls "the
friend who sticks closer than a brother," our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. He is the one who invites us, in our deepest,
darkest moments, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy
laden - all you Elijahs - and I will give you rest."
Amen!
1. Oct., 1988
2. Joseph Scriven, c. 1855
3. Pastor's Professional Research Service, 3/89-4/89, p. 2
4. Lloyd Ogilvie, Making Stress Work for You, (Waco, TX: Word Publishing, 1984), p.
194
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