Blinded By Despair Series

Begin with clip from Hee Haw TV show. Gloom, despair, and agony on me. I remember many a Saturday night gathered around the TV as a child with my family. We enjoyed a lot of laughs as we watched sketches like the one we just viewed. This was the first thing that came to mind when I knew I was going to be preaching this week. I’m reminded of the saying- if I wasn’t laughing, I’d be crying.

That’s exactly where we find Elijah as we wrap up our series about Blind Spots. Today, we’re going to focus on the idea of despair. Elijah had been on the mountaintop, but he fell quickly into the pit of despair. We’re going to get started with the first few verses of today’s text and pick up the rest later. Read 1 Kings 19:1-3. Pray.

Despair is defined as the utter loss of hope. Elijah was a great prophet of God, he’d been diligently serving his Lord, how did he reach a point of hopelessness, of despair? Let’s begin with a bit of backstory.

During Elijah’s time, Israel was ruled by an evil king, Ahab. Elijah had confronted Ahab and informed him that there would be no rain until Elijah called for it to rain again. Three years have passed by before God tells Elijah to present himself to Ahab to usher in the rain. Ahab is rather annoyed at Elijah, viewing him as the cause of all his troubles.

Elijah proposes a duel- him against the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. Each will build an altar and pray to their god to consume the sacrifice with fire. The god who responds with fire will be the god whom Israel follows. Elijah allowed the false prophets to spend most of the day calling on their gods, even taunting them as they failed. Then he built an altar, dug a trench around it, and had so much water poured over the sacrifice that the trench was filled. When he prayed, God sent fire, consuming the sacrifice and all the water too.

Elijah has won the duel, put the false prophets to death, then informs Ahab he better get going because the rain is about to begin. God then empowers Elijah to run so fast he beat Ahab’s chariot back to Jezreel. One would think that he’d be on top of the world at this point. Look what my God did, there’s no stopping me now.

But Queen Jezebel sent Elijah a message threatening his life. She had a reputation too, she had cut off the prophets of God, so Elijah knew she meant it. He immediately comes crashing down into despair, convinced that he’s about to die, and practically begs God to end his life.

What causes someone like Elijah to fall into despair? I believe it’s because we lose our focus on who God is. We see it happen throughout Scripture. Israel fell into whining and complaining time after time while wandering in the desert after being saved from Egypt. Samson lost his focus and was tricked into a haircut. Gideon was hiding in the winepress. Peter nearly drowned when he took his eyes off Jesus and got caught up in the storm raging around him. All these people had taken their eyes off God and let their circumstances dictate their emotions. Elijah did the same thing- he took his eyes off what God had just done and focused on what Jezebel was trying to do.

We do the same thing today. Experience the mountaintop, come crashing down to the valley of despair. Have you ever heard of the gold medal syndrome? Apparently, as many as 40% of Olympic athletes struggle with despair and depression once the games come to an end. They had been so focused on their dream of winning a gold medal, that when it’s all said and done, they’re not sure what to do next. For example, I recently learned that I have something in common with gymnast Simone Biles- being a Green Bay Packers fan. Her husband just began playing as a defensive back for the Packers. I mention her because she was quite vocal about raising awareness of athletes’ struggle with depression during the last Olympics. She even withdrew from some of the events she was expected to do well in because of her mental health. She just recently was able to begin competing again, having received the help she needed.

To bring it a little closer to home, another summer has just come to an end. One of the highlights of summer for me (and I hope for more and more of our young people) is getting to spend a week at church camp. I have many fond memories of my years as a camper and enjoy getting to give back as camp faculty each summer. It’s a great week in which everyone is able to remove the distractions of life and focus on their relationship with Christ. It’s life-altering. Almost every week I’ve ever been to, whether as a camper or as faculty, towards the end of the week, someone always talks about the wonderful mountaintop experience we’ve had and how we need to prepare to return to reality. There will be temptations to return to “normal” so we’ve got to resolve to keep our focus. We’ve been on the mountaintop, we need to be prepared to deal with the valley.