Do you ever have the sense that you are no match for the problems of our day? Alone and in a fight you didn’t want?On one side: you.Just you.On the other side: them.
You have a list of "them" – problems, changes, offenses, bills, fears, questions, deadlines.More and more of them.,GEORGE WASHINGTON'S REMARKABLE PRAYER FOR AMERICA STILL RESONATES 250 YEARS LATERYou versus them.
You are…outnumberedoutpacedoutdoneoutgunnedoutmaneuveredout there in the tempest all alone The odds are against you.It’s 850 to 1.Those were the odds against Elijah.
Who is this Old Testament man? And what in the world does his world have to do with you? More than you think.'WE COULDN'T MAKE PAYROLL': DOUGHNUT SHOP OWNER ASKED GOD FOR HELP — WHAT HAPPENED NEXT STUNNED HIMHis story is all about bad odds and odd gods.Their god is odd.
The odds against him are bad.And Elijah is in the middle of it all..His story is relevant because the challenges he faced are similar to yours.
The ninth century B.C.was not a good era for the Jews.
King after king was corrupt to the core.Less than a hundred years earlier, King Solomon had dedicated the glorious temple in Jerusalem.
Some Jews were old enough to recall the golden era of faith.They were acquainted with the blessings of a God-centered culture.
But over the course of a lifetime, the people drifted.By the time Elijah appeared on the scene, Israel was six decades and four kings deep in a cesspool of death and decadence.
Ungodly idol worship.Unholy clergy.
Unbridled evil.Untold sordid scandals.
Sound like a good era in which to live?Sound like the era in which we live?I’ve never been sympathetic to comments about "the good ol’ days." I always dismissed such comments as romantic nostalgia.Not any longer.Chaos.Anxiety.
Exhaustion.Fear.
The white-knuckling tumbles through this unpredictable life.In a historical blink of an eye, we are shedding old beliefs and grasping for new ones.What was once unthinkable is acceptable today.The ...