Read: 1 Kings 19:1-18
And [Elijah] arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. (v. 8)
In today’s reading, we find Elijah in a low place. The chapter before, he was the conduit for God’s power in defeating the prophets of Baal. But in today’s reading, he had fled into the wilderness, a wanted man. “It is enough,” he says in the shadow of a broom tree, “now, O LORD, take away my life” (v. 4).
It is enough. Do you feel the weight of that? There’s a bone-weariness in that phrase, a sense that Elijah couldn’t even rise to his feet if he wanted to. Death seemed to be the only way out. Our Maker can only look down at us and say, “The journey is too great for you” (v. 7). Perhaps you are in that place today.
And yet, “the LORD passed by” (v. 11). That’s the great hope when it all feels too much. Elijah ascends the same mountain where God spoke from the burning bush and listens for God. There’s a great wind, an earthquake, a fire—but God cannot be found in any of the three. He comes instead in “the sound of a low whisper” (v. 12), so quiet that Elijah might have missed it had he not stilled himself.
When the weight of the world is too much, when all we can do is crumple to our knees and cry, “It is enough,” that’s precisely the place where the Lord wants to meet you—even if it’s through the gentlest whisper.
As you pray, ask God to draw near to you when it all feels too much.
Justin Kuiper is a student from Holland, MI, studying English literature at Hope College. His own writing explores the many intersections of faith, storytelling, and the created order. Justin is a life-long soccer fan and plays on the Hope College soccer team.
