When God asks you a question...

June 27, 2008


1 Kings 19:13-18 ASV
(13) And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
(14) And he said, I have been very jealous for Jehovah, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
(15) And Jehovah said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over Syria;
(16) and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.
(17) And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.
(18) Yet will I leave me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.


In this excerpt, we see God asking Elijah, for the second time, Why are you here Elijah? I will let you in on a little secret if you do not know it already. If God asks you a questions, you can almost take it to the bank that He knows the answer already. I take that back, you can take it to the bank. It is an even money bet.

So, how does Elijah respond. He tells God all the good things that he has done for God and he is the only one left to serve God. Now Elijah knows that is a lie because in the chapter before this one he meets up with a man who tells him he has 100 prophets of God hidden in two caves. Nope, he is not telling God these things to let God know the situation (as if God did not know it already), Elijah is having one big huge pity party.

Now pity parties are not cool. I mean, a day should all you really need to have one if you are going to have one, but Elijah had this one going on for a couple of months. So what does God do in return? First he replaces Elijah with Elisha, and has Elijah anoint him to add insult to injury. Then he tells him, 'look, there are 7,000 of my people out there, get over it.'

Sometimes, when God asks you a question, it is to get you out of the rut you are in and move on to things for God and to stop focusing on yourself. So if God asks you a question, especially if He asks it twice, you might want to really think about how you answer Him.

Today

1 Kings 17:1-19:21
Tomorrow

1 Kings 20:1-21:29

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