Lesson 310: "Caved In"
Have you ever had that feeling that your world has caved in around you? You have lived the good life; eating healthy, exercising, keeping up your yearly doctor’s visits and then “BAM”! A member of this esteemed medical profession tells you there is a tumor hovering within your body and spreading throughout your vital organs. Your world caves in! Perhaps you have reached the highest peak in your career only to have the rug pulled out from under you when the company downsizes or sells out and your position is in jeopardy. Your world caves in! All of your life’s savings have been invested in the stock market and you are looking forward to retirement in a few short years and the market crashes as do your dreams. Your world caves in!
Elijah was a man just like us (James 5:17) except unlike most of us he was a prophet. God’s first miracle through Elijah was to shut up the skies so no rain would fall on the earth. God sent Elijah to a spring and commanded ravens to feed him; then He sent Elijah to a starving widow and her son for food she did not have but through her faith and obedience to the prophet, she had flour and oil to feed them all until the Lord sent rain. The boy died, Elijah brought him back to life and then went to meet with the wicked king Ahab who was married to evil queen Jezebel. Since Jezebel had been killing all the prophets of God, Elijah was the only one left. Fearlessly he agreed to meet with 450 Baal prophets to demonstrate the mighty power of the one and only true God. One of my favorite stories can be found in 1 Kings 18:19-40 and tells how Elijah taunts the worshipers of the idols to prove their god was more powerful than his God. They lost! Then he killed all 450 of the heathen prophets.
Ahab called Elijah “the biggest troublemaker in Israel”! I call him fearless, brave, obedient and powerful! Then wicked Jezebel sent her life threatening message; “may the gods punish me terribly if by this time tomorrow I don’t kill you just like you killed those prophets” (1 Kings 19:2). Elijah’s world caved in! Gripped with doubt and fear he went first into the desert (of despair) and then hid himself in a cave (1 Kings 19:3-9). To doubt God’s ability and power to protect you is to doubt God’s love which is written into His own Word. The Word is God and God is love (John 4:1, 4:8). Plato wrote “The Allegory of the Cave” in which he stated; “ascending out of the cave of mental darkness is coming into the sunlight of intellectual enlightenment. If an enlightened person should be forced into a dark cave he becomes disoriented”. Elijah and David among many others in the bible had become disoriented. Many Christians today become disoriented when we enter the cave; doubting God’s love and His power and His Word that He would never leave or forsake us (Deut. 31:6).
To “leave” is to let you go your way and God stay behind. To “forsake” is for God to go on ahead without you. He does neither of these and there is one more good point to make here. When you “hide in a cave”, God will find you just like He did Elijah (1 Kings 19:9) and will probably ask you the same question He asked Elijah; “Elijah! Why are you here”? Then again just as He did with the prophet, His faithful servant, He will reveal Himself to you. You are a faithful servant aren’t you? God revealed Himself with a quiet gentle sound, a whisper, a small still voice. When you feel your world caving in, LISTEN! He’s still with you! He still loves you! He still protects you! And He still speaks!