Elijah’s nature like ours

What do you think?

“The prayer of faith will save, James 5:15—heal, 5:16— and provide forgiveness, 5:15. The prayer of a righteous man has great power, 5:16-18. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain—he prayed again, and  heaven gave rain,” 5:17-18.

Like it or not, we all have it. We all have inherited our father, Adam’s, nature. Elijah, righteous as he was, still had Adam’s I’ll-do-it-my-way nature. In fact, right after his rain-taking, rain-making stint, Elijah let a mere person, who didn’t have near the power that Elijah could access, scare him into running away to hide. He wanted to quit life, get it over with. But God met him and gave him fresh courage to continue the prophetic work he had begun.

I can identify with the desire to quit, give up. Sometimes it feels like a meaningless grind, especially when the outcome I seek is far from the one I get. How about you? Is parenting not producing what you had hoped for? Or your job, is it boring, stressful, dead-endish? Is your marriage kind of blah? Are you, like me, struggling with the temptations that come with increasing disabilities—self-pity, fear, withdrawal, or bragging about how well I’m dealing with my maladies.

Then a friend says something that’s exactly what I need. It may be encouragement or rebuke, but I know it’s heaven-sent. How do I know? Because it pulls me out of my slumping into Adam’s nature and calls me to stand up tall and live according to Christ’s nature.

As I was thinking about the disappointments our children and grandchildren have experienced, the weight of it was dragging me into the pits. I was blaming myself for getting all this started. Then the arrogance of such thinking hit me, as if I could control their lives and make sure they didn’t suffer. Besides, the final chapter isn’t written. Who knows what the outcome of their unwise decisions and consequent suffering will be?

Lord, help me to resist slumping into discouragement regarding how life is going. Especially help me to stand tall before my family. I want to give them an example of what it is to trust you in all of life’s challenges.