THE ELIJAH EFFECT

Maybe someone else has coined that phrase, but that's what I experienced this week. Have you?

It had been a full six months of working and writing. Then another two weeks of intense polishing each word. Than a weekend finishing. I was tired, but since it was a work week, it was time to work.

I began to wonder WHY I felt so horrible - the sparkle had gone out of my life. The week before I was so excited about the project I was working on and my life. Now I just wanted to sleep.

It seemed to go from bad to worse as the week wore on. One night I just gave up and was in bed by 9:10 pm. How unlike me. What was wrong with me?

As I woke on Friday with a work day stretched ahead of me, depression nagged at the edge of my mind. And, if you are anything like me, I hate to be depressed - it makes me depressed! Then it was like God was gently reminding me of the Elijah Effect.

After Elijah (read I Kings 19 in the Old Testament), had tremendous victory and run a day‘s journey, he sat down under a tree and wished he were dead. (I could identify, can you?) What did God tell him to do (as we often tell ourselves) - snap out of it, don't be such a wimp, get up and get moving.

No, God told him:
Arise and eat. I Kings 19:5

God knows we are but dust. Now if only WE will realize it.

Heavenly Father, thank You that You don't expect me to be super human - You expect me to be me, learning and growing at the pace You want me to learn and grow. Please help me, when I stumble into those moments of the Elijah Effect in my life, that you will remind me that I am to rest, to eat, to be restored. In Jesus' name. Amen.