PicsArt_03-03-04.32.37Have you ever wanted to just give up?  I mean…you’ve eaten 0-5, you have read Thin Within or done a workbook study or gone thru the Hunger Within book and yet, you seem stuck.  Or it’s too hard.

Maybe you have been getting closer and closer to the Lord by surrendering the food, weight and size.  It may have felt like you’ve been on a mountain top.

Yet….sometimes our darkest valleys come after we have been on the “mountaintop” experiences with the Lord, don’t they?

We are not alone in this experience of wanting to give up!

In 1 Kings 19, we read about how  Elijah felt the same way right after he called fire down from heaven to consume the alter of the Lord!  Right after that happened (and he had all the priests of BAAL killed….) Jezebel calls for his death.

Elijah was AFRAID (yes, this is the man that just called on God to reign fire from heaven to consume the alter…) and he ran for his life!

1 Kings 19:4

Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

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Elijah had just experienced God feeding him by ravens, using him to feed a widow with the oil and grain that never ran out and also raising her child from the dead!  (It’s all in 1 Kings 17) Now he is letting fear rule him and wants to die!

Sometimes we feel like giving up because we let fear overwhelm us.

Just like Elijah, we focus on ourselves and not on God.  When he was focused on God, that’s when miraculous things happened.  But when Elijah was focused on his own insecurity, inadequacies and NOT God’s strength, he wanted to give up!

Ladies, so it is with us!  If we focus on what God can do in us and through us, we will see miraculous things!  He can and WILL transform us from the inside out if we surrender to Him and focus on Him day by day.

Look at this!

When Elijah was wallowing under that tree, ready to give up and die, did God reprimand him?  Did God tell Elijah that he just needed more willpower or that he should just ‘get his act together’? NO!

1 Kings 19:5-7

Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!” He looked around and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.

Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.”

PicsArt_03-02-08.46.22God gave him food to strengthen him and allowed him to rest. He send an angel to help him and care for him.  He didn’t tell Elijah that he had to do it all on his own.

God is telling us that today. He wants to feed us with so much more than what we can give ourselves. We no longer need to sit under that tree feeling like we haven’t done it right or that we should just give up.

We can cry out to God, even in our despair and He will answer. But we must give up doing this in our own strength. We must turn from ourselves and focus on HIM.

So, if you find yourself in the desert, under that tree and ready to give up, HEAR ME NOW:

God is for you.  
God is with you.
God is behind you helping you move forward. 
God is before you leading you on.

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So now, sojourner….be ENCOURAGED on this journey!
Our God is mighty and is with YOU today!

 

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