"What are you doing here?" What a question! Has anyone ever asked you that?
"What are you doing here?" You were some place where nobody expected to see you, but you turned up, and that was the reaction. I have heard it in the grocery store. I cannot go to this Safeway up here without running into church members. And a couple of times I’ve turned the corner around the canned goods and met one of you, and you’ve said, "What are you doing here?" You don’t think pastors eat? Just look at the evidence! An unexpected encounter. What are you doing here?
Let’s go deeper. "What are you doing here?" You were some place where you didn’t feel welcome; some place where you felt you didn’t belong. The atmosphere was strange. You felt you just wanted to get out of there. You were a fish out of water. Like the time I did a wedding in the Great Choir of National Cathedral. Felt like no place for a simple Baptist preacher. The question running through the mind was, "What are you doing here?"
Let’s go deeper still. Have you heard it in your head, when the technology on the job changed, and you couldn’t keep up? You felt that maybe you just couldn’t do any longer what needed to be done? You caught a hint that some machine, some computer, might replace you? "What are you doing here?"
Did you hear it when that last child graduated and declared himself independent, and all the energy you had put into parenting was suddenly no longer needed? "What are you doing here, you old fossil? Who needs you any more?" My parents heard that from me when I bought my first car, a well used and slightly clunky 1955 Dodge, and my girlfriend named that car "The Declaration of Independence." Aha, I see that she still remembers! Our children send us the message, "What are you doing here?"
Or maybe you heard it when you were widowed or divorced. That marriage, into which you had put everything for so many years, was suddenly and brutally ended. You hadn’t even thought of yourself as an individual for a long time. You thought of yourself as part of a couple. It wasn’t "John" and "Mary," it was" JohnandMary". But suddenly he was gone, and you found yourself rattling around the house with nothing to do and no one to invest in. Then you heard the question, "What are you doing here?"
That’s pretty challenging stuff. At various plateaus in our lives we face that question, "What are you doing here?" A number of years ago author Gail Sheehy wrote a book called Passages, in which she says that, for adults, about once every decade there is a challenge that has to be met. And that for middle-aged and older adults that challenge is the challenge of knowing that we did something. Knowing that we mattered. Believing that, when all is said and done, we succeeded in some kind of way. And, says Sheehy, if we get to those middle and older years and cannot feel we had some kind of success, then depression sets in and anxiety builds up. "What are you doing here?" We sure would like to know. When all is said and done, did we make a difference?
I can tell you that I’m arriving in that time of life, having been born back in nineteen hundred and none of your business – that time of life when I have to wonder what I’m doing here. Or, as one of you put it, you wonder if you’ll ever grow up (the person Who said that is about eighty years old!). Or, as Christians might frame it, we wonder whether God values who and what we are.
I know this is a theme for many of us. It’s uncanny. It really is. Normally I spend my Fridays at home writing the sermon. But this Friday there were two church members who needed some time with me. I do not turn that kind of request down if I can possibly agree to it. So I spent two or three hours on Friday afternoon with these folks; and, would you believe it ... they too were struggling with some of these issues! One of them ten or more years younger than I, the other almost twenty years younger. "What am I doing here?" When all is said and done, will it matter? So I cannot help but believe that a few moments spent with brother Elijah today will be immensely helpful to all of us.
I
Let me begin by setting up the problem. Let me try first of all to put ourselves in Elijah’s shoes. When we get to the place where we begin to wonder what we are doing here, when we begin to wonder whether our lives matter ... it’s common to feel depressed. It’s not unusual to feel down, a little unhappy, a little queasy. It’s pretty common to have a pity party, to whom no one else but yourself is invited. Feeling blah, depressed.
That’s what Elijah did. Oh, look at Elijah. He is classic, absolutely classic. Think about what Elijah had accomplished by now. You’ve followed it with me these past three weeks. First, he backed down King Ahab by declaring a drought that lasted three years. Next he survived, sustained by the ravens in the wilderness and by the poor widow of Zarephath.
Next he raised the widow’s son from death, and then he challenged the priests of Baal at Mt. Carmel, and he beat them. And finally he lifted the drought and watched it rain again.
I’d say old Elijah had accomplished quite a lot, wouldn’t you? Many of his goals were realized. And yet, now, because one person ... one person, Queen Jezebel, has threatened him, Elijah is in a funk. One person. He can’t remember all the victories. All he can think of is this one negative word. Plenty of accomplishments. But the anger of one little woman devastates him.
One of you told me the other day that you had looked back at your old college grades; that in your mind you remembered only failures and criticism. But when you looked back at the record, after the passage of a few years, you saw that the compliments far outweighed the criticism! That you were really a more successful student than you had remembered. What’s going on?
We are our own worst enemies. We are our own harshest critics. And no matter if a thousand thousand say we are doing well, when we catch the Elijah syndrome, from somewhere deep down there comes that terrible voice that says, "Not good enough. Not good enough."
What are you doing here? Listen to Elijah’s self-pity come pouring out. "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."
I alone am left. Never mind that the text tells us there were a hundred more of the prophets of the Lord. Never mind that there were 7000 faithful believers. I alone am left … that’s all Elijah could see.
We are a strange mixture of self-doubt and self-promotion. We are a curious blend of self-denial and of egotism. I just suspect that many of us are like Elijah, wanting to know that we have mattered, not very sure about it, because somebody, somewhere, dared to voice a criticism. And it shattered us. It shattered us because inside there was already a voice saying, "Not good enough. Not good enough,"
Bill Clinton thinks America is in a funk. He ought to meet Elijah. Elijah went out to be alone. He felt like he wanted to die. And then he fell asleep. All classic symptoms of depression.
All right. There’s the problem. There’s the issue. But may I begin to show you the outlines of grace? May I begin to tell you the good news about what God does for us in times like these?
II
When we come to those crunch times, when we face the issue of whether we have mattered, and we get depressed just thinking about it, God provides for us. He provides what we need to get us through. And it is a very thorough providence. Let’s unpack it.
Watch with me. God’s provision in times of depression includes physical sustenance. Spiritual sustenance. And emotional sustenance. Physical support, spiritual roots, and emotional bracing.
A
Look. God provides physical sustenance and support. "An angel touched him and said to him, ’Get up and eat’. He looked and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ’Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights."
Our God begins to help us survive the throes of depression by strengthening us physically. If we will but see it for what it is, grace begins at the refrigerator. I know this sounds absolutely wacky, but think about it. You’ll feel better if you eat something. You’ll feel better if you exercise. You’ll feel better if you just get busy. Sometimes depression and self-doubt has a physical basis, and we need to pay attention to that. It is when I am tired that I am most likely to succumb to soul-weariness. It is when I am exhausted that I am prone to wonder if all this work is worth it. But if I rest and take nourishment; if I just get out of the house, out of the office, get away somewhere, I begin to get perspective back.
That’s grace. That’s God’s gift. Physical sustenance and support.
B
But now look. The next thing God gives to fight against self-doubt is spiritual support. Spiritual roots. "Elijah went to Horeb, the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there."
What is Horeb, the mount of God? Horeb is another name for Sinai. Mt. Sinai. That should ring some sort of bell in your memory. What had happened, years before, at Mt. Sinai? The giving of the Ten Commandments. The place where Moses met the Lord and received the covenant for Israel. Horeb is spiritual roots. Horeb is going back to the place where your people got their start. It is finding your spiritual roots.
I tell you, there is grace in finding out who you are by touching those roots again. There is grace in it, because that’s where you find out who loved you first, who cared for you way back when. Rev. Arnold likes to tell stories about his North Carolina childhood and the people that loved him then. Well, Kentucky too had a pantheon of saints. I too have some places and some people that in my heart’s eye I can go back to. Because they loved me and nourished me and they gave me something special.
I have Miss Annie Miller, who taught me in Sunday School when I was about nine or ten, and who was as old as the hills, but who loved to teach wriggly boys. If she’s still out there somewhere, we could use her in the after-school program! I have Mrs. Lillian Taylor, who first recruited me when I was a college student to teach Sunday School. She put me with her six-year olds. I ran out of stuff in the first twenty minutes of class and spent the rest of the hour trying to explain to them how a jet engine works; not that it had anything to do with the Bible, and not that I myself understood how a jet engine works. But even so she loved me and believed in me. I have Dr. Herbert Gilmore, the pastor who got me started as a preacher; who told me when I was to do my very fist sermon to memorize it and leave the manuscript at home, and who, when I got completely lost halfway through, didn’t give up on me but just helped me find my own way.
Do you see? God’s grace leads us back to Horeb, the Mount of God. God’s grace leads our memories back to times and places where somebody just loved us unconditionally and believed in us, believed we could succeed. And wonderfully, gloriously, if they believed in us then, it becomes easier for us to believe in ourselves now. What is it the hymn writer says, "Where is the blessedness I knew, when first I sought the Lord? Where is the soul’s refreshing view of Jesus and His word?"
I’ll tell you where it is. It’s back at Horeb. It’s back there in what somebody put into us a long time ago. Spiritual support. Spiritual roots. Grace.
c
And then, notice that grace gives emotional support too. Emotional bracing. Physical support, spiritual support, and emotional support.
"What are you doing here, Elijah?" God asked the question once and then asked it a second time. It was not a rebuke. It was one of those leading questions that is really saying, " I care about you, my friend. Tell me where it hurts. Tell me about your feelings." And, even though Elijah trots out all his self-doubt and speaks all his disappointments, the question comes again. "What are you doing here, Elijah?" What are you really doing here?
Do you know what I hear? I hear God lovingly, gently, saying, "Come on, Elijah. You can tell me. You can trust me. What are you really feeling? Read your feelings, Elijah. Read your heart. Let’s have it. Let’s get it out." And like the best and wisest of counselors, our God reaches out for Elijah and loves him. Just embraces him gently, gently.
You see, our feelings are our feelings. And whether they are well founded or ill founded; whether we ought to have them or ought not to have them… that doesn’t matter. That’s of no consequence. The fact is that we are often driven by the stuff going on down there in the tummy, and the grace of God is to provide a warm, accepting, loving place into which we can pour it all. God wants to support us emotionally. A bruised reed He will not break.
The grace of God provides for us. When all is said and done and we wonder if our lives have counted. When all is said and done, and we wonder if we matter at all, God supplies our physical needs; He takes us back to the places where we first met him; and then He lovingly, gently, leads us to know what we really feel, so that He can heal.
"The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest helL"
III
But do you know what? When all is said and done, it isn’t. It isn’t over yet. Because just when we are wallowing in self-pity, and just when we are complaining to high heaven, that is when God is preparing the greatest and best of His gifts. That is when God is getting ready to give us something even better.
When all is said and done, it isn’t. Because when we have worked through all of our issues, then what God will give us is empowerment. Empowerment. Being strengthened to keep on keeping on. And in a very special kind of way.
God wants to empower us to bless real people. God wants to give us success with names on it. Look. Elijah, "go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah as prophet in your place."
Elijah, I have sustained you and gently led you. You’re all right. You’re better off than you think. I want you to get up and get out there and bless somebody.
The time for self-pity is over. Get out there and bless somebody. And not just everybody in general. Not just a vague and nameless whoever. I want you to bless Hazael. And I want you to bless Jehu. And I especially want you to bless Elisha, because you need to train him to take over from you. Empowered to bless real people.
"What are you doing here?" When all is said and done, and you wonder if your life has counted, well, all is not said and done, not yet. Find a child to hug. Find a friend to love. Find a senior to care for. Find a cause to embrace. Find a sinner to save. And make it specific. Make it personal. Find your children. Find your parents. Find your neighbor, your friend, where you are. Find Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha. And bless them. Bless them. Give them something. And your heart will leap, and you will know.
You will know that you are not finished, not a failure; you are not mired in your feelings.
"Be still, my soul, the Lord is on Thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide, in every change He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul, thy best, thy heavenly friend Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end."
