1 Kings 19:4-8
Year B
“It is enough, now, O Lord.”
Elijah has hit his breaking point.
Perhaps you have, too? Or maybe you recall a time you reached your breaking point, when you prayed, “It is enough,” when you meant, “It is too much. I can’t go on from here.”
Or maybe you can recall a time when you looked at your community, your city, your nation, the world, and asked God, “Haven’t we had enough?” We trust in God, and yet we also wonder, how much is enough to bear, enough to learn what God is trying to teach us?
Enough with the gun violence, God. We can’t take one more school shooting. We can’t bear one more innocent death.
Enough with the warring madness, God. We can’t bear any more babies dying or people taken hostage or hospitals bombed.
Enough with the natural disasters, the floods, the wildfires, the Category 5 early-season hurricanes and the deadly heat waves, God. The earth is boiling and praying its own desperate prayers.
Enough with the anger and political divisiveness, God. We can’t bear any more leaders whose rhetoric fuels rage and spills into violence. We can’t bear another dinner or Sunday school class or committee meeting where we tiptoe around each others’ views, walking the knife’s edge of our political divisions.
Elijah’s prayer of desperation arises out of a wilderness of suffering. He is in Beersheba, on the run from Queen Jezebel, who wants to kill Elijah for killing the prophets of her god, Baal.
No one can run forever. Not even a prophet of God. Elijah came to the end of his physical, emotional and spiritual rope. He can’t go one step further. He collapses under a broom tree and prays for God to take his life.
It’s in these lowest of low moments when we learn to be honest with ourselves and with God, when we are finally forced to confess that we can’t do it all, that we aren’t completely self-reliant, that we could use some help.
In our text for this Sunday, it’s important to note the kind of help that Elijah did and did not receive from God. An angel appears to Elijah to give him food and drink — but not to answer Elijah’s prayer to die. The angel also didn’t come to throw Jezebel off Elijah’s trail. King Ahab’s evil queen was still in hot pursuit. The angel didn’t magically and instantaneously make Elijah’s life better or transport him to an earthly paradise where his worries would vanish. Rather, the angel came to give Elijah just enough sustenance so he could carry on.
A friend recently confided in me about her struggles with depression, and about the days she finds herself unable to do anything more than just lie in bed. In these moments when life itself is simply too much, her counselor has advised her to think smaller, to only consider what the next right step might be. For my friend, lying in bed, the next right step might be pulling the covers off her body, or swinging her feet to the floor, or walking to the bathroom to wash her face. In the face of her overwhelming depression, these small steps are miracles in themselves. They do not heal my friend’s depression. Rather, they serve as “just enough.”
According to the text, Elijah ran on the strength of the angel’s food for 40 days and 40 nights, until he came to Horeb, the mount of God.
“It is enough, now, O Lord, it is enough!” From running for his life to admitting his desperation in prayer to God to making the most of the resources he was granted to reach safety, we see how Elijah is transformed by a God who gives us enough.
We may not be given as much as we want or think we need. But God gives us enough to take the next step.
It is enough. It is enough, we might hear Elijah pray, as he makes his way through the wilderness, step by small step, to the mount of God.
It is enough. It is enough, we might pray with Elijah as we face our own suffering. We, too, are strengthened by God. We, too, are given enough to move forward.
It is enough, now, O Lord, it is enough.
Questions for reflection:
- What thoughts, feelings, ideas or images came to mind as you read this passage?
- When have you had enough? Or, come to the end of your physical, emotional or spiritual rope? What did you pray for in this moment? Did God provide? If so, how so?
- The world’s problems are overwhelming. What might be the next right step for you or your church to take to move forward in addressing one of these problems?
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