My topic for my devotional today is the ups and downs of life. There are all kinds of ups and downs in life – physical, spiritual, emotional, and life in general.
I was recently reading a passage from 1Kings 19, where Elijah has just seen the power of God in the encounter with the prophets of Baal. From the eutopia of that, he went truly down in the dumps, and thought he would be better off dead.
Hopefully, our downs are not as desperate as that of Elijah. However, we can all have those moments of despair, but as Christians, we know the love of God – that he will find a way to lift us up and send us on our way with renewed assurance.
Read 1Kings 19: 4-10, and verses 15-18.
Verse 4: “I’ve had enough, Lord!” he was certainly suffering from low self-esteem. Have you ever felt like that? You’ve had enough and wondered where God was in that situation.
Verses 5-6: While he was asleep, an angel woke him up and said: “Arise and eat.” So often, at our point of great need, God breaks into the situation and meets our physical and spiritual need. In fact, for Elijah, this was repeated until finally he was rested.
Then God speaks to Elijah. (Verses 9-10.) “What are you doing here?” God continues speaking to the prophet and says: “Get on your way.”
Verses 17-18: God says: “I will have the victory. And by the way, you are not the only one true to my word. Seven thousand have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
I once heard of a businessman describe his years in college as a time when he often felt helpless and hopeless from bouts of depression. Sadly, he never talked to a doctor about these feelings, but instead, started making more drastic plans, ordering a book on suicide from his local library and setting a date to end his life. The library notified the student when his book on suicide was ready to collect, but in a mix-up, the note went to his parents’ house. When his mother called him – distraught, he realised the devastation his suicide would bring. Without that address mix up, he said, he wouldn’t be here today.
I don’t believe that student was saved by luck or chance. Whether it’s bread and water when we need it, or a timely wrong address, when mysterious intervention saves our lives, we have encountered divine tenderness.
God cares for the helpless and the hopeless. We see in his treatment of Biblical characters during their own dark times. When Jonah wanted to die, God engaged him in a tender conversation. (Jonah 4: 3-10.) When Elijah asked God to take his life, (1Kings 19: 4), God provided bread and water to refresh him, (Verses 5-9), spoke tenderly to him, (Verse 11-13), and helped him see that he wasn’t alone as he thought, (Verse 18.). God approaches the downhearted with practical, tender help.
Sometimes, it is needful for God to break into our situation to show us his loving care. I want though to encourage us to find ways to deal with heartache when it comes our way.
1. Having a close walk with God.
So how do we do that? By living a righteous life in tune with God’s Word, having a personal lifestyle of reading God’s Word daily and applying it to our lives. I’ve recently read a book called “The Fear of God” by John Bevere. He talks about living in the blessing of God, and holding God in awe, and having a living relationship with him.
John 17: 3 (Jesus’ own words): “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” When we truly know someone, we can trust them, and share with them our deepest needs and fears. So we need to have a grasp of God’s Word, for he is the one that lifts us up in our time of need.
Here are some encouraging verses.
Psalm 40: 2: “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
Matthew 28: 20: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
A true friend is one who stands by us during our time of need. Jesus is our true friend. Jesus is our model for friendship, because he loves without limits, and makes it possible for us to live a life of friendship because we have been transformed by everything he shared with us. Through friendship we come to know God, and through friendship we enact the love of God.
This is Jesus speaking: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15: 12-15.)
2. A living prayer life.
We need a prayer life that is literally alive and personal with our Lord and Saviour. I once came upon this quote: “Seven prayerless days makes one weak.” Prayer is not a theory, but something that is worked out in reality. It is not words that go nowhere. It is being in communication with the living God – talking to him, listening to him, just as you would to a friend.
There are, of course, many types of prayer. If you read the gospel of John, you will see different types of prayer Jesus prayed, and he encouraged us to do the same.
Let’s look at one of Jesus’s prayers, from John 17.
Verse 1: “After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” Jesus had a personal relationship with his Father. (See John 17.)
Going on into verses 2 and 3: “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” He talks about personal relationship.
Verses 4-6: “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word.” He talks here of obedience.
Verses 7-9: “Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me, and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.” Prayer is about relationship.
Verses 10-13: “All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” Jesus knew he was going back to the Father.
Verses 14-17: “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” Prayer is about action.
Verses 18-20: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” Prayer has a futuristic content.
Verses 21-26: “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
We have not looked at each verse in detail, but we can see it is a personal Jesus who is praying to someone he knows namely as his Father. When we have a meaningful prayer life, in those dark moments of struggle, we have a real personal friend in Jesus, who will lift us up and encourage us, in the full knowledge that he cares about us and reaches out to us, setting us on the pathway to eternal life.
This is a confidence – to face life, whatever it throws at us, for nothing can separate us from his love.
Romans 8: 35-39 says: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons. neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Some words from a song to reflect on:
God sent his son.
They called him Jesus.
He came to leave, heal and forgive.
He bled and died,
To buy my pardon.
An empty grave is there to prove my Saviour lives.
Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because he lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know, he holds the future.
And life is worth the living just because he lies.
And then one day I’ll cross the river.
I’ll fight life’s final war with pain.
And then as death gives way to victory,
I’ll see the lights of glory and I’ll know he lives.
Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because he lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know he holds the future.
And life is worth the living just because he lives.
He lives1 hallelujah! He lives!