He replied, “LORD God who rules over all, I’ve been very committed to you. The Israelites have turned their backs on your covenant. They have torn down your altars. They’ve put your prophets to death with their swords. I’m the only one left. And they are trying to kill me.”

1 Kings 19:14 NIrV

If you feel like you have read I Kings 19:14 before, it is because Elijah provided the same answer to the same question in I Kings 19:9-10.

Share

0.75× 1× 1.25× 1.5× 1.75× 2×

0:00 0:00

×

Both times God said, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” and both times his emotional honesty was the same.

Why did God ask the same question twice? Why didn’t he correct him, then rebuke him, and command him to get back to work? If we are honest, most of us would have to admit our view of God expects just such a reaction.

Remember God is in the whisper. He knew Elijah was giving up and wanted to quit, so he was nurturing him back to health. The first step was getting Elijah to work through his emotions because Elijah simply couldn’t let them go.

Have you ever reached a point in your life where you couldn’t let go? Maybe the residual feelings from a very public failure, a deeply personal rejection, or tragic experience you fear will occur again.

More often than not, our loss of faith is rooted in the inability to let go of emotion. We answer the same question the same way, and have been doing so for years or even decades. You know the feeling, those “I will never…again” reactions.

The goal for today is to prepare your heart and mind to let go, whoever it is against, whatever was done, and wherever it happened. You want to arrive at a point where you can respond to the same question with a new answer, because this means you have your groove back.