1 Kings 19: The Monday After the Miracle, When Elijah Is Running on Empty

Introduction

"I was about to say happy Sunday, but I'm telling you happy Monday." That is how Caleb Becquart opens this message in the "Happy Monday" series at Église Lille Métropole. Its title: the Monday after the miracle. We often pray for God's hand to move something. But once he has acted, what do we do?

Monday is traffic jams, the alarm clock going off too early, "5 more minutes" turning into 25, the coffee you drink out of necessity. It is also, the preacher smiles, the day his children take longer to get ready. There are good Mondays, and there are Mondays that call for a painkiller.

The prophet Elijah had a Monday like that, a real low point. Following 1 Kings 19, without taking his eyes off Jesus, the preacher shows how to get through Mondays marked by pressure and responsibilities "in the calm of his presence." His thinking comes in three steps: Monday reveals my limits, Monday teaches me to listen to God, Monday sends me back to others.

Outline of the Message

1. From Carmel Sunday to Elijah's Monday

The historical books tell the story of Israel and how God is involved in their lives "as he is involved in ours." The context is harsh, and God uses progressive revelation there to reveal Jesus little by little.
1 Kings 17 is miracle after miracle, like the widow of Zarephath. God prepares Elijah in secret.
1 Kings 18 is the confrontation. It has not rained for three years. King Ahab and Jezebel, his wife, commit abominable acts. A meeting is set on Mount Carmel: the God who answers by fire will be the true God.
The 450 prophets of Baal cry out in vain. Elijah, full of confidence, mocks them, has water poured on the altar, and God sets it ablaze spectacularly. The people confess that Yahweh is God, then the rain returns.
The preacher uses an image: the miracle is Sunday. The next day, "a Monday unlike any other," Elijah is at rock bottom.

2. Monday Reveals My Limits

Jezebel puts a price on his head. Elijah flees to the wilderness, sits down under a broom tree and asks to die: "It is enough. Now, Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." An angel touches him twice: "Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you."
He walks forty days to Horeb and enters a cave. God asks him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answers with everything he has done: "I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies [...] I, even I only, am left." "Happy Monday," the preacher comments.
During his studies, a roommate stuck on ice at minus 25 degrees had floored the accelerator so that the heat of the friction would melt the ice. He wasted half a tank. The lesson: "good intentions are not enough." You need clear revelation.
After an exhilarating Sunday, Elijah faces a sneaky challenge: the empty Monday, without the team, without the atmosphere of the church, without emotion. "It's just me and my Bible," and the question of whether to move forward or not.
He is exhausted, depressed, overwhelmed by his responsibilities. "That's where the Bible reassures me, because it is realistic." We are equipped on a splendid Sunday to be sent into a Monday with no frills, "because God reveals himself there too."
God asks "how are you?", not "what have you accomplished?" Elijah is in functional mode: accomplishing, doing, proving. In Hebrew, his answer insists heavily, as if he were saying "I have zealously been zealous." It is not pride: "I did my best and I'm worn out."
"When my spiritual growth stalls, it's because with God, I am more functional than relational." The goal of the Christian life is not a tremendous worship service, it is a worship that is consistent with Jesus.

3. Coming Back to the Word with Four Questions

Facing a brutal Monday, you can stay hooked on Sunday ("I'm going to watch the livestream again"), or focus on Monday with Sunday's baggage. The Lord goes with you, "whatever your job."
What lifted Elijah up was that God came to speak to him. To someone who said they never heard God, a pastor friend answered: "Read your Bible." And if they wanted to hear him with their ears: "Read your Bible out loud."
The preacher draws on Glenn Smith, doctor of practical theology, for whom all theology must lead to a practice that moves the Church and Christians forward. Four questions help when you are running on empty.
What is the text about? Elijah, exhausted, is fed by God, walks to Horeb, and God puts him back on his feet.
What does the text seem to teach? A good intention is not enough, and Elijah wants to prove himself when God wants communion.
What principles do I find in the life of Jesus? This question keeps you from pulling a text out of its context. In Mark 3, Jesus chooses the Twelve "to be with him." Not first to preach or to perform miracles. In John 15: "Remain in me, and I in you." "You are not in your problem, you are in my presence."
What does the text invite me to practice? Serving is not functional, it is relational. Only the relationship with Jesus gives fresh revelation.

4. Monday Teaches Me to Listen to God

"Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh." A great wind, an earthquake, a fire, and Yahweh is not in them. Then "a still small voice," and the same question: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
Between Carmel, Jezreel, Beersheba and Horeb, Elijah covered about 500 kilometers in three chapters. "Not even the scouts do that." He looks for support in the middle of the pressure, and God is available for that too. He takes his time and asks the question a second time.
Elijah believes his service creates his relationship with God. "And it's the opposite." The Father's goal is the relationship: rest, eat, how are you?
God also helps him gain perspective. To "I, even I only, am left," he replies that seven thousand men remain who have not bowed the knee to Baal. "God was fussing over him": a cake, a jar of water, a morale boost.
Miracles and healings come as fruit. They serve to serve the Lord better, "because there is someone else besides me who matters," the one who does not yet know Jesus. The goal was neither the fire, nor the wind, nor the mountain: "the goal is the relationship," with someone named Jesus.
The number forty marks times of formation: Israel's forty years, Moses' forty days, Jesus' forty days. "Relationships take time. Being credible takes time."
The preacher tells about his own Monday: a week of fasting and prayer after trips and a seminar, difficult health news about loved ones, the boiler, his daughter slow to get dressed, then the car that would not start, steering column locked. He calls his wife to come pick him up. "And that was just a Monday with no real problem."

5. Jesus Is Not a Signpost, He Is the Way

At Carmel, God acted by fire. A few days later, it is a whisper. The point is not to cling to the way he acted, "it is to cling to him."
"Spiritual growth will inevitably lead me to cling to a person more than to a system." Talent and gifts are not enough to handle a Monday under pressure: you need Jesus.
We sometimes think Jesus is a signpost pointing to heaven in the distance, with a list of things to do and not to do along the way. But Jesus is a living person. He is the way, the truth and the life: he is there with you, he takes you along.
"Lord, I'm walking with you. Does that mean I'm serene? Not at all, but I trust you."

6. Monday Sends Me Back to Others

"Monday begins when you agree to stop living it only for yourself." Loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself means going beyond your wounds to care for the other.
Verse 15: "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus." God took his temperature, gave him the vision and the provision, and sends Elijah back to anoint Hazael, Jehu and Elisha "to be prophet in your place." "It doesn't matter if you forget my name, as long as you remember Jesus."
The preacher qualifies the idea of "monetizing your calling": "Freely you received, so freely give." Obedience is not made conditional on a reward, because the reward is Christ who redeemed us. One day, the Lord may say: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your lord."
Elijah feels alone, in danger, rejected. Elijah wants to rest from what he has done, God wants to give him the rest of his presence, "because it is not over." God heals the relational through the relational: he uses his body, the Church, to heal his body, when it is centered on Christ.
"Monday is the place where my faith is going to be useful to someone." It also means being available so that others can help me. "It doesn't all depend on me."
How the next generation takes up the torch depends on how I answer God's call today. Jesus surrounded himself with the Twelve, imperfect but available. "That is the Monday after the miracle."

7. When Someone Tells You to Get Moving Again

Coming from a simple family, the preacher was able to study at a Bible school in Canada thanks to people who paid for his housing and his studies. God never left him comfortable enough to stop working, "precisely so that I would be there on Monday."
Three weeks after he arrived, the emotions wear off. A pastor asks him how he is. "I'm depressed." He calls him into his office: people have invested in him, are praying for him, and others who do not yet know Jesus are waiting for him to be trained.
The message was clear: we are going to take care of you, but "you have to make the decision that you are going to get moving, because nobody will do it for you."
The preacher invites those who are hurting, or who feel they did everything right and still have problems, to take an inner inventory and to proclaim: "My God is alive and there is no one like him."

Key Takeaways

After a high point, Monday reveals our limits. The Bible is realistic: even Elijah experienced exhaustion and discouragement.
God asks "how are you?" before "what have you done?" Service does not create the relationship, the relationship feeds the service.
God does not always speak through fire. You have to cling to him, not to the way he acted.
Jesus is not a signpost at the side of the road: he is the way, and he walks with you.
Monday sends you back to others: your faith becomes useful to someone, and others can help you.

Personal Application

In your relationship with God right now, are you more functional or more relational?
If God asked you today "What are you doing here?", what would you answer: what you have done, or how you are really doing?
Which of the four questions would help you read the Bible differently the next time you are running on empty?
Which fire or which way of God acting are you clinging to, at the risk of missing the still small voice?
Who, this Monday, needs your faith to be useful to them, and whose help do you need to accept?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Elijah discouraged right after the miracle at Carmel?

For Caleb Becquart, Elijah is living a "Monday" after an exceptional "Sunday." Jezebel puts a price on his head, he has walked a great deal, he is exhausted and overwhelmed by his responsibilities. He is facing an emotional letdown. The Bible is realistic: it shows a limited man living with a God of miracles.

What does the question "What are you doing here, Elijah?" mean?

God does not ask Elijah what he has accomplished, he asks him how he is. Elijah answers with what he has done, he is in functional mode. God, for his part, calls him to relationship: rest, food, his presence. According to the preacher, when spiritual growth stalls, it is often because we are more functional than relational with God.

Why does God send Elijah back to work instead of letting him rest?

After feeding him, reassuring him and reminding him that seven thousand faithful remained, God tells Elijah: "Go, return on your way." He sends him to anoint kings and Elisha as prophet in his place. For Caleb Becquart, God heals the relational through the relational: Monday is the place where my faith becomes useful to someone.