December 13th - Under the Broom Tree

December 13th 2017 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: 1 Kings 19: 3-9

“Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Under the Broom Tree

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah was coming off the high of watching God display His awesome power in the showdown with the priests of Baal. Each were to build an altar and call upon their god to send fire to consume it. Only Elijah’s God answered the call. Elijah thought; “now all these people will believe in THE God most high.” But that wasn’t the case. Instead, no one was moved, and he received death threats from Jezebel. Losing hope and giving in to fear, he fled for his life and hid under a broom tree.

Here was a man who’d experienced incredible displays of wonder and power by our God, and in a second, he forgot it all and threw in the towel, saying; “take my life”. In His unending grace and patience, God responded by giving Elijah food and rest, twice. Strengthened, Elijah continued to Horeb where he rested in a cave. There, God gave him a gentle invitation to speak his mind by asking; “what are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah’s response was one that we’ve all probably given God at some point in our lives; “I’ve been committed to you. I’ve done everything I know to do, and yet the plan has failed.”

Elijah had lost hope in the plan. He had put God in a box, thinking that this last display of God’s power was going to fix everything. But when nothing really changed, he lost the vision, because it was his vision. But God had a plan still. He always has a plan.

Maybe you’ve been on a path and the outcome is not what you expected, or even wanted. And maybe you are needing time under the broom tree; time to rest and be renewed. God knows our limitations. He knows our needs, and He is always willing to listen and love us. Take some time now to consider how His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are so much greater than our thoughts. Be reminded that He has a plan – even when it looks like the plan is failing. Trust anyway.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

- Romans 8: 28

“God is God. Because he is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.”

-     - Elizabeth Elliott