Come Out of the Wilderness

1Kings 17: 8-24
Luke 7: 11-17

Elijah is in the middle of the wilderness when he hears God’s voice telling him to go to Zarephath. Considering the country is in the middle of a drought, Elijah had to be excited to be told to get out of the heat despite the ravens that had been bringing him bread and meat while he was out there. The wilderness is a scary place to be, and when God takes us to such places, we are often there to learn something. Usually it is about depending on God for what we have been trying to do alone.

Elijah hears God’s voice and it says to go to this town that is in the country of Queen Jezebel who Elijah happened to be at odds with at the time. Elijah couldn’t have been too happy to hear that he was about to enter an enemy’s home turf, and then on top of that he is told to go see a widow. This wouldn’t have been welcome news if the country hadn’t been in drought, but it was even less welcome now.

Widows were powerless people. Without a man to give her societal status, Elijah knew she would have very little to offer him in the way of comfort and sustenance in normal times, and even less during a drought. Elijah was probably tempted to stay in the wilderness with the ravens. There he knew what he was dealing with; he could handle the wilderness because he had been doing it for some time. This new journey God was leading him on just might be his death.

We understand what Elijah is going through in this moment. Think about where you are in your life right now. What is it that has been giving you problems lately? Are you going through a wilderness experience just like Elijah and Moses and Abraham have gone through? The wilderness is a place of struggle and testing. Wilderness experiences strip you of all of your defenses and leave you vulnerable and hurting. They force you to adapt and change. They require you to learn from your past mistakes so that you may move forward to something new and better. And until you learn to do that, you will stay in that place of struggle and hurting.

Sometimes though, we want to stay. Not because we like being miserable and not because we are having fun in these places. No, we want to stay because we know this place. We are familiar with the pains and the hurts and the struggles. We know how to navigate through these particular problems because they have plagued us our whole life in different ways.

For some of us, we love too easily and get our hearts broken. For some of us, we have been hurt so much that we doubt every person’s real intentions. For some of us, the wilderness is a place where we walk in circles like Moses and the Israelites, trying something new and making the same mistakes over and over again - perhaps in our work or our relationships or with our friends and family. Some of us are desperate to be accepted and so we pretend to be things we aren’t to get friends and lovers. Some of us refuse to trust and so we deliberately alienate ourselves from those who could hurt us. Some of us pick partners that hurt us emotionally or physically because we think we do not deserve any better. Some of us find jobs and careers that we know will keep us busy so we do not have to go home at night.

Every person in this room has a wilderness that they continually come back to. There is something in your life where you struggle and hurt and constantly return too. God does not leave us alone during these times. God sends us our own ravens to help us be fed and sheltered. And God also continually calls to us; trying to bring us out of this desert and back into a healthy life.

Sometimes we are so deep in our misery that we do not hear God’s voice. Sometimes we deliberately ignore that voice because we’re scared. We’re scared that as bad as it is right now, what the future holds will be worse if we move on. If we let go of what has been holding us back, we have to move forward and moving forward means change. Change is scary. Change can hurt, matter of fact, it often hurts.

What if it is worse than what we are going through now? What if we decide to leave our abusive spouse and end up homeless or with someone that is even worse than he or she ever was? What if we leave our job that makes us miserable and the place we end up is twice as bad? What if we go back to school and when we graduate we cannot get a job? What if we stop hounding our grandkids to come to church and they never again step through these doors? What if we take out that loan and cannot pay it? What if we have that surgery and it makes things worse?

Fear holds us captive in the wilderness. Fear paralyzes all of our good intentions and leaves us drowning in our current misery; trying to be content with what little we have in our lives. Let me remind you of something. Jesus never minded when the disciples doubted his words, what made Jesus absolutely furious was their fear. Doubt is healthy because it keeps us cautious, and helps us think and grow. Fear stops all growth. Fear stops all faith. Fear reduces us to nothing if we let it. Fear will keep us going around in circles, constantly miserable and constantly hurting.

Is that what you want?

It isn’t want Elijah wanted. When he hears God’s voice calling him to go to the place of his enemies and to a widow’s home, he went. I’m sure he grumbled and drug his feet, but Elijah went. When he got there it was even worse than he feared. The widow was gathering sticks to make the last of the bread she had so her son and her could die. She had given up all hope of living.

Elijah must have been ready to scream at God for bringing him to such a hopeless place, but he looks at this poor widow and he says, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and make your meal as you were going to, but first make me a small loaf of bread, and bring it to me. The Lord God will not let the jar of flour or the jug of oil to go dry until rain falls upon this land.”

Elijah’s worst fears, our worst fears seem to be realized when he comes upon this woman making her last meal. God has brought us out of the wilderness only to die in the enemy’s land! What trickery is this?! But Elijah summons up his faith; the faith that had brought him here to begin with, and he tells the woman and most likely himself to not be afraid.

Where God leads us is where we are meant to be. If God calls you to a new place or to something new it is because there is something for you there. It does not mean it will be easier than what came before, but it does mean that God will be faithful to you as you have been faithful to God. Elijah and the widow and her son do not go hungry. The jug of oil and the jar of flour are never depleted. Every morning there is enough to feed them. It wasn’t a feast, but it kept them nourished. God kept the promises made to them both.

God will keep the promises that were made to you. Listen to your heart. Truly listen. What is God telling you to do? Where is God telling you to go? What is God telling you to give up so that you may be free to accept something new? Open your mind to the possibilities and accept that although it may not be easy, God will not abandon you. If you remain faithful to God’s voice; you will be exactly where you are meant to go. You will be doing exactly what you are meant to be doing. Don’t let your fears paralyze you. Don’t let your fears reduce you to a shadow of who you really are and the person God sees when looking at you. 

Come out of the wilderness. God is calling for you.

Amen.