Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
If you wish to be a man or woman of God, it is essential that you face the impossible situations of life with faith, as Elijah did. If you are a young person who desires to live a godly life that will leave its mark upon this world, you must learn early to stand in the shadow of your Saviour, trusting Him to work through the trials you encounter, through the extreme circumstances you cannot handle.
Read 1 Kings 17:22–23
No words can describe what happened in that little upstairs bedroom when the corpse began to stir and Elijah saw life returning to the boy’s body. No words can describe being in the midst of such a trial and then watching God, in a miraculous moment or period of time, work it out. Only you who have been there can nod, smile, and say, “Amen. I know exactly what you’re describing; I’ve seen God do it.”
Elijah saw that kind of miracle. It happened before his eyes. Now, look at what he did.
Elijah was not able to say, "Let this child's life return to him, as it happened to Enoch, as it happened to Isaac, as it happened to Moses," because there was no precedence for this particular miracle. So Elijah said, "Lord, I'm trusting You for a miracle. I'm asking You to perform the impossible." He then waited.
Elijah had no this-is-how-God-always-does-it manual to follow. Instead, he relied solely on one thing: faith. He had only his faith in the living God.
I'm deeply impressed by the man's gentleness. Though Elijah deserved none of the woman's blame, he stood silent under her blast. That's gentleness. Someone, somewhere, has called this fruit of the Spirit "the mint-mark of heaven."
God sometimes seems to put us in the vise, and then He tightens it and tightens it more, until we think, in the pain of His sovereign squeeze, "What's He trying to do to me?" We walk closer to Him and even closer to Him. We don't see how we could walk any closer, but still more tests come, one on top of another.
You can't talk the talk if you've never walked the walk. You can't encourage somebody else to believe the improbable if you haven't believed the impossible. You can't light another's candle of hope if your own torch of faith isn't burning.
If you walk with the Lord long enough, you will discover that His tests often come back-to-back. Or perhaps it would be even more accurate to say back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Usually, His preparatory tests don't stop with one or two. They multiply.
In a very real sense, God has designed a boot camp for His children, but it doesn't last just eight weeks or 10 weeks. Nor is it a weekend seminar we can take or a daylong workshop we can attend. God's training course takes place periodically throughout the Christian life.
Read 1 Kings 17:1–7; James 5:17–18
Elijah had prayed that it would not rain and, ultimately, it did not rain for three and a half years. So, the dried-up brook was just an indication that the very thing he had prayed for was beginning to take place. He was living in the result of his own prayer.
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