Elijah Reflections: Part I

This is the first of a three-part lesson on Elijah.  For random or more frequent visitors to this blog, let me  explain what I do here.  I write almost daily because it seems silly to have a blog that only gets posted to once a month or so.  I write that frequently for myself, to keep my writing going (I plan to use my blog material in other places), and as a record.  However, I do try to keep it relevant to four themes: 
1.  Communication, public speaking, and language, my discipline (and thus the name of the blog)
2.   Spiritual reflections
3.  Movie and book reviews (I rarely watch TV shows since LOST went off)
4.  Random observations that come to me.
I used to write about politics but try to do that in as nonpartisan a way as possible.  I am a conservative who isn't really happy with how some other conservatives act; they act totally against conservative principles!

So here is the first part of a study on Elijah, but my next one will be on boxing movies! 

Emotional and clinical depression are nothing new to the Christian life.  We have talked about it several times in here.  The distinction I would make is that emotional has its roots in circumstances and temporary illness, whereas clinical is a chemical deficiency that can be and probably should be helped with medications.   In my opinion, anybody who is not empathetic or who is judgmental about another Christian who is suffering from depression should be careful.  Not having had depression up to a certain point in one’s life is no guarantee that it won’t happen in the future. 

At one time in my life, back in the early ‘90s, I was struggling with understanding depression in others.  I had never experienced it, and any time I felt down, it was usually over after a nap, a walk, and a couple of hours.  I may have said to someone, “I don’t get this depression thing,” and been superior about it.  But one morning I woke up and literally couldn’t move.  It was, as people say, like a dark curtain was over me, or more like a pile of quilts that I had to drag around after me.  I was in a fog, or worse.  I had had plenty of sleep and wasn’t ill.  I was just desperately, horribly, “pressed down.”  Most people know I am a pretty active and “get ‘er done” type A person, so this was totally new.

It lasted less than a day, and has never come back.  But it was very vivid, and it cured me of any lack of empathy for the depressed.  I know depression’s real now, even if it’s not part of my life.  My problem is anxiety more than depression, but those are probably more related than not; I am also more introverted than extroverted but like people and like to be busy. 

Many, many Christians have suffered from both types.  I think many of the saints probably had clinical depression.  The two most well known are Martin Luther and Charles Haddon Spurgeon.   The most obvious example of depression in the Bible is our subject today, Elijah the Tishbite, the prophet in Israel (northern kingdom) during the reign of Ahab and that iconically evil woman, Jezebel. 

The story picks up in I King 16:29.  Ahab is about as bad as it gets, and there is no depth to which Jezebel won’t sink.   Losing his sons in judgment doesn’t stop Ahab from his leading Israel into more and more idol worship.  However, we can tell from later chapters that the people were not totally apostate, but equal opportunity religionists:  syncretists, as we looked at earlier.  They gave Baal and the LORD God equal time, which was unacceptable. (I don’t like to write the anglicized form of the name of the LORD God of Israel because Jews do not; it’s really irreverent to them.) 

In chapter 17 we begin to read the activities of Elijah, who is one of those Biblical characters who seems to just exist, with no parentage, and no one really knows where Tishbe is.  As a prophet he announces a three-year drought, and because of the persecution of Jezebel, he escapes to Sidon (to the north of Israel) and ministered there.  We have the story we tell children in Sunday School in chapter 17, but this has a bigger point in the context of Elijah’s life.  Even though he is in exile, he is still being useful.