Hello, my name really isn’t all that important. I’m one of the little known characters in the Bible. I appear and disappear in a matter of a few verses. I had an incredible encounter with one of the giant men of Bible history. His name was Elijah. He was a prophet from Israel. I’m sure you’ve heard of him before.
My father died when I was very young. He worked on the ships that made my people famous. He voyaged out into the Great Sea, which you now call the Mediterranean Sea. The ship sunk, and he and the crew were all lost. Our land was very wealthy because we were engaged in trading with various nations around the Great Sea. Mom tells me that our life was good before dad died. I really don’t remember much about him. After dad died, we moved to a small village called Zarepheth.
We were poor. Without dad bringing in a good salary, we lived day-to-day. Often we depended on people or family to help us have enough money to buy food. I wasn’t old enough to work yet. Mom tried to hide the fact that we were so poor, but I knew it. I tried not to let on so she wouldn’t worry more. My mom was the best. We didn’t have much, but she took real good care of me. Our house was very small. We were fortunate enough to have room upstairs.
We were what you would call pagans. We didn’t believe in the Yahweh of the people of Israel. We had our own gods. Our town had its own god, and we were quite content with him. Some of the people in our land worshipped a god called Molech. Some people would sacrifice their children to him. I was secretly glad we didn’t live in that city. Our god wasn’t so fierce. We kept a small statue in our little house. We worshipped this god regularly.
One of the kings of our land had been a friend with the king of Israel at one time. I think his name was Solomon. He was supposed to have been a great king. His God, Yahweh, had given him great wisdom and wealth.
After Solomon died, the country of Israel sort of fell apart. They divided the country into two parts. There were several kings after Solomon. There was this one man named Ahab. I guess he was a real stinker. The God of Israel didn’t like what old Ahab was doing. It got so bad that their God made it stop raining. It hadn’t rained in months. You see, the terrible drought affected us, because we lived close by. Their God was a very powerful God. The old-timers in our town said it was the worst drought they could remember.
All this made the events of that time in our house all the more strange and amazing. Our food supply was drying up and fast. Water was getting scarce. Grain was scarce. We had to cut back our meager meals. We hadn’t had an abundance of food before the drought, but now it was even worse. It made me sad. I wasn’t able to run around with the other boys from the town. We used to run through the streets and play tag. We would do was boys do. Just play all day. Now, I wasn’t able to do that. Mom said I needed to stay at home. The harder I played the hungrier I got. The hungrier I got the more I wanted to eat. Mom thought if I wasn’t so active, I wouldn’t eat as much.
Then one day, mom looked especially down. She left the house really depressed. I hadn’t seen her like that before. She always tried to be strong for me. My natural boyish curiosity got the better of me. I peaked through the cabinets, but there was less food than normal. I was kind of worried. What were going to eat? We only had a small amount of grain and oil. It was maybe enough for a couple small biscuits. My stomach was rumbling with hunger pains. A boy like me needed food.
Mom was gone a long time. It seemed much longer than usual. When she finally did return, she got right to work in the kitchen. I watched her silently prepare and bake a little cake. I was excited because I hadn’t eaten all day. Much to my surprise, and disappointment, I watch as she picked up the cake, wrapped it in some cloth and left again. “Mom,” I exclaimed, “Where are you going?”
She said, “I’ll be right back, son.”
I was in utter disbelief. There was even less grain flour and oil now. My stomach roared its disapproval of the events.
I peaked out the window to see my mom walking with a man. He looked like of the people from Israel. They came in the house. My mom motioned toward me and said to the man, “Elijah, this is my son.” I managed a smile forced through the pangs of hunger.
“Hi, there,” this strange man said.
Mom said, “I took that cake so Elijah could eat.” That angered me. What was mom doing? We barely had enough food for ourselves, let alone doling out to strangers. Mom got busy making some more cakes of bread.
Elijah told me a cool story of how he had lived in a valley on the other side of the Jordan River. He drank water from a brook, and ravens delivered his food morning and night. But, then the stream dried up. He said, “My God told me to come here, to your town.” I was totally taken in by his story, that I was surprised when mom brought the cakes to the table.
As we ate the cakes Elijah told us more about the God of Israel. I asked why their God would punish the people by drying up the skies.
Elijah said that God loved the people, and they had been disobeying Him.
We went days and the little grain and oil that mom had left didn’t get use up. They stretched. Not only did mom and I eat well, but also Elijah stayed with us and ate his fill every day.
He told us that his God would provide our food, and his God did. His God had told him point blank, “Get up and go to Zarepheth in Sidon and live there. I’ve instructed a woman who lives there, a widow, to feed you.” How could his God, all the way over there in Israel know about my mom? How could his God know that mom would feed him? It was all so strange.
Elijah’s God had made a promise, and He kept it. Our god wasn’t so reliable. We were always offering sacrifices to get our god to do something. Sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn’t. This Yahweh God was different though.
This led me to think about something. Why were the people in Israel not following him the way they should have? I mean, he kept his promise to Elijah. Elijah told us stories, too, about Yahweh’s promise. It seems that long before all this happened, the people from Israel lived in Egypt as slaves. Yahweh took them from Egypt to where they are now. He had opened up the sea so they could cross on dry land. Our god never did anything like that. It was amazing how Elijah told these stories. Yahweh was always there to help his people, but they would often turn away from Him. If he had been my God, I would have followed him.
One night when we were sitting at the table after dinner, as Elijah was telling us more stories about this Yahweh, I started to feel sick. I felt awful. Mom looked worried. She lay on my bed. Suddenly I stopped breathing, so they tell me. All this is from what mom told me later.
Mom was angry. First, her husband had been lost at sea. Now, her only son was dead. She hollered at Elijah, “Why did you ever show up here in the first place—a holy man barging in, exposing my sins, and killing my son?”
Mom was holding my limp, lifeless body. Elijah took me carried me outside and up the staircase that went up the outside wall of the house. He prayed to his Yahweh God. The next thing I knew is that I woke up in the upstairs room. I was breathing again. Elijah scooped me up in his big strong arms and it seemed as though we floated down the staircase. I could hear mom weeping loudly from inside the house. She was crying, “My son! My son!” She was praying to our god to bring me back.
Elijah burst through the door with me in his arms. Mom wheeled around, red-faced from crying. Elijah shouted, “Here’s your son, alive!” Mom couldn’t believe her eyes. She jumped up and hugged me. She kissed me all over the head, as only a mother can.
The tears were drying up on her face as she looked at Elijah and said, “I see it all now—you are a holy man. When you speak, God speaks—a true word!”
After that, we took the statue of our old god and threw it out. Mom said we would follow Yahweh the God of Israel.
Elijah stayed with us for a long time. The grain barrel and oil flask were never empty. We ate. I went back to playing with boys in town. Elijah told us stories every night about what Yahweh, our new God, had done for the people of Israel. He told us of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson, Samuel, King David, and King Solomon.
I never saw Elijah again. He left. We didn’t want him to go, but Yahweh was calling him.
Mom and I have often reflected on that time that changed our lives forever. What did it all mean?
Mom is always embarrassed that she blamed Elijah for killing me. I guess it was a natural reaction for any mother.
Yahweh had shown us a great miracle. Mom later told me that the day she met Elijah, she was preparing to fix our last meal. That meal would have used up the reserve our food supply. After that we would have starved to death. Not only were we able to feed Elijah, but Elijah was really feeding us. I mean Yahweh, through Elijah, was feeding us. It still blows my mind.
After mom blamed Elijah, Yahweh still raised me from the dead. Wasn’t he angry with mom because she yelled at Elijah?
What about you? Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever seen God do something amazing in your life? Then, when things go bad, you start blaming Him for the calamity?
I’m a first hand witness of how amazing God is. Like I said, we even quit worshiping our old god and started worshiping Yahweh.
Friend, I’m here to tell you one thing. God cares deeply for you. Even if you are in doubt about what he’s doing, he is desperately in love with you. Sometimes it takes us a while to see it, like my mom. Sometimes we can’t believe what we see. I am here to tell you this, if God cared enough to send his prophet Elijah to my mom’s house when we nothing more than a couple pagans in a foreign land, he cares for you. Stop trying to hold onto you small gods. What are the names of you gods? Career? Money? Prestige? Material possessions? Those things will never amount to anything. Trust fully in the vast expanse of God who loves all humanity, including raw pagans like me and mom. Where are you? Do you trust that God will see you through the rough patch you are in right now?
