How Short Term Missions Can Change Your Life!
1 Kings 19:1-18
When you pray who listens the most and what do they hear?
It was a day like any other day, as far as he could remember. The drought was in its third year, and the people were suffering greatly. The king was so desperate and the food was so sparse that he had begun to search the land for food for his animals. Yet, this day was not like any other day, the Lord had spoken to him and had told him to go to the king with a message that rain was on the way. As he headed for his meeting with the king, he came across Obadiah, a godly servant of the king. Their meeting, of course, was no chance meeting. God was orchestrating another opportunity to prove His sovereignty to the people who had turned their back on him. When the prophet came before the king, he was met by accusations of treason, but not to be deterred by man’s perspective on events, he laid down a challenge. "Gather the people," he said. "Bring out the other prophets. Let’s see who’s God is God."
When the king, the prophets and the people gathered on the mount, the time for the challenge had come. The queen’s prophets were the first ones to make an attempt at a sacrifice. At first, they screamed and shouted for their god to come and accept their sacrifice. As the morning wore on, they became frenzied in their worship dancing wildly, but still their god had not responded. Soon, he began to mock them. "Shout louder," he said. "Perhaps your god is deep in thought or maybe he is relieving himself. Better yet, maybe he went on a trip or he is asleep and he needs to be awakened." This only stirred the queen’s prophets into a greater frenzy. Soon, they cutting themselves with knives and swords until their sweat was washed away in their blood. Still, as the hours drifted by, there was no answer, until finally, they gave up, exhausted and defeated.
Stepping forward, he called for the people to build a trench around the altar for his sacrifice. "Douse it in water," he commanded. Two more times he told them to soak the sacrifice in water. And then he prayed. Immediately, fire from heaven consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and even the water in the ditch around the sacrifice. The people fell on their faces and worshipped God as the Lord. Later that day, he would pray again, and it would rain, the drought would be over. Was it day like any other day or was it truly a glorious day? It was both and yet neither, (only the postmodern can understand that) for the queen threatened his life when she found out that he had killed her prophets.
Fearing for his life, he fled into the desert. So goes a day in the life of the prophet Elijah. How can short term missions change your life? What can you learn from a trip that only takes a few days or at best a few weeks? Over the next few weeks, I want to share some of the things that I learned from our short
term trip on the Navajo Reservation.
One lesson: When you pray, you can learn more by listening. (1 Kings 19) After a day of great triumph, Elijah experienced a great tragedy. (v. 1-4) Neither the king nor the queen had repented of their evil. Sure, God had been victorious at the battle of Mt. Carmel. Sure, the people had seen God’s miraculous power. Didn’t they say, "The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!" Sure, God had brought rain to the land and the drought was over. Sure, one would think that everyone would realize the foolishness of serving false gods. But that is not the way things turned out. Instead, the king was still unconvinced and the queen was rather incensed. "May I be killed if I do not kill Elijah by the end of tomorrow," she was heard to say. His fight or flight response kicked in and he ran like he had never run before. Leaving his servant in Beersheba (was the servant slowing him down?), he went alone into the desert. There he sat down under a tree and begged for the very thing he was running away from. Now would God answer his prayer?
(v. 5-9) Depression overcoming him, he fell asleep until an angel awakened him. (How do you deal with depression or discouragement? Can we criticize Elijah for what just happened? How does God deal with depression and discouragement? How can we be honest and devoted followers of Christ in light of such depressing or discouraging circumstances?) "Get up and eat," he was told. After his meal, he fell asleep again. Then, the angel of the Lord told him to get up and eat and drink, for there was a long journey ahead of him. After this power lunch, he traveled forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, where he found a cave and spent the night.
(v. 9-13) Soon, God spoke to him. "Why are you here?" Breaking into prayer (or was it complaining), Elijah began to pour out his heart. "I have served you with zeal. I have done all that you have asked me to do. Still, the people do not turn to you. I am alone and they want to kill me," he cried out. Notice how God answers. "Oh my, Elijah, why didn’t you tell me it was so bad! How could I have let things get out of control. We must do something now, but what?" No, He doesn’t say that at all. Instead, He tells Elijah to listen to Him. First came the windstorm, then the earthquake and then the fire, but God was not in any of those. Instead, He spoke in the sound of a gentle whisper.
(v. 13-14) Again, the conversation continued just as it had begun. "Why are you here?" "I have served you with zeal. I have done all that you have asked me to do. Still, the people do not turn to you. I am alone and they want to kill me," he replied. How does God deal with depression and discouragement? "Go back and do what I tell you to do." Let’s pause here for a moment. I really do not know what Elijah was thinking throughout this whole ordeal, but, if I were him, I can imagine that he was focused on what he had done for God, how the people had not turned to God and that now he was running for his life. I would be experiencing a lot of anguish.
I could even see how I would continue to go back to the same events and conversations over and over again. I can imagine replaying these events and the words that were said in my head. I can imagine looking for a better way to say or do something, at least say something or do something differently so the results would be different. I can imagine when I prayed I would be pouring out my heart wondering what God was doing. I wonder (or do I) if God gets rather frustrated when we pour out our hearts, but forget to listen to what He has to say. I wonder if He was frustrated with Elijah who was pouring out his heart, but wasn’t fully listening to what God had to say about the circumstances that he found himself in. I know there is a lot more to this passage, but I wonder if Elijah could have learned more if he had simply listened to God first before he ran. I wonder how that would have changed things.
I learned this lesson in several different ways on our recent trip to the Navajo Reservation. One the first day out, our guides were continually asking us if we had heard anything from the Lord. I was struggling with their request for several reasons. First, I was having a hard time disengaging myself from home and church. Then, I felt a lot of pressure to get an impression from God so that I could make an impression on our guides. I really felt that I wasn’t listening to God and my praying wasn’t that fruitful. Unfortunately, I think I was the most passionate when I was going up the hills ("O God let me make it!) and going down the hills (O God don’t let me wipe out and break something!). This continued on to the second day where I became so frustrated because I was spending so much time asking God for things and so little time just relating to Him. As we road to one of the monuments in Shiprock, I felt a release when I realized that I didn’t need a word from God to impress anyone, rather, I needed to relate to my Father. For me, I think this changed the tone of the whole trip. You see, I wasn’t hearing things from God in the way I wanted to because I was focused more on seeing God’s Hand rather than seeking His Face. The more I related to Him by listening to Him, I learned more about praying than I did while I was just asking.
On Saturday night, the last night of the trip, I finally had an incredible break through in this area. As a group, we attended a worship and prayer service where we began to ask God to move in the church and on the Reservation. I was in the back of the church by myself because I really have a hard time worshipping and praying in front. Anyway, I began to clearly hear God as we were praying. At one point, I even felt His compassion for a wheelchair bound little girl. I even cried. There were several other things I heard as I listened to Him and His direction. However, as the meeting continued, I began to notice the prayers were getting louder, begging for God to move. Soon, I began to get very frustrated and even angry because I felt God really wanted to speak, but He couldn’t because these people kept on talking.
Now, I wish I could say I am a great pastor and a great prayer warrior, but I realized that’s what my prayer life is all too often like. I talk and I talk and I talk and I never learn anything new. In fact, I feel like I am saying the same things over and over and still there can be so little change. That’s why when we pray, we need to learn that we can learn more by listening. God has a much better perspective on things than we do, and if we don’t allow Him to speak to us, we are going to spend a lot of time and energy on things we can’t afford to spend a lot of time and energy on.
Go back to Elijah. When Elijah stopped speaking and started listening, that’s when Elijah began to learn. This whole time he was complaining about the ugliness and unfairness of the situation. When God finally interrupted him, the whole situation changed. God gave him a new perspective. God gave him directions. God gave him hope that wrongs would be righted and that the wicked would pay for their sin. God gave him a disciple. And God gave him new strength so that Elijah was able to go back to Samaria and face the obvious dangers that lay ahead. Elijah, to me, clearly learned more by listening.
Conclusion
Why don’t we listen more? We know the ritual right? Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still and know that I am God." We know we need to be still before Him. Psalm 23 says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters." We know we need to be nourished by Him. Psalm 81 says, "Read verses 8-16." He would bless us if we would but listen. Why then do we talk so much when we pray when we can learn more by listening?
Application: Prayer line people - listen and tell. Personal - spend a portion of our time in prayer actually listening to God. What has God been trying to communicate to you, but you have not been listening? How has He been ordering events and people so that He can communicate to you? What have you been reading or hearing?
