Run for Your Life!

Some of you are in a season of life where ministry is rewarding, fruitful, and fun. The staff is gelling, the difficult decisions you made last year were the right ones, and you have a renewed sense of passion and focus. Your spouse even likes your sermons lately. Life is good.

If that's you, I'm thrilled for you. Ride that wave. I hope it lasts a very long time.

But this piece is not for you.

This is for those of you who want to run for your life.

This is for those of you who woke up Monday morning to an email that ruined the rest of your day, and it has a good shot of ruining the rest of your week.

It's for those of you who are dealing with a thorny staff issue, which is turning out to be an energy-sucking sinkhole, and it isn't getting better.

It's for those of you who sit at Starbucks and pray that your appointment won't show up, so you can have an hour (or seven) to yourself.

It's for those of you who feel defective after slogging through another book highlighting the importance of vision, because you are utterly blind these days, and you're wondering how long it will be before others notice.

It's for those of you who can't stop that thing you know you need to stop, and can't start that thing you know you need to start.

It's for those of you who feel hyper-criticized, under-appreciated, over-worked, and inefficient.

It's for those of you who feel dangerously close to doing something stupid.

It's for those of you who have already done something stupid.

If you are in a season of ministry where you want to run for your life, you are not a terrible pastor, or person. In fact, you just might be at the threshold of transformation.

One of the most helpful books I've read lately is Invitation to Solitude and Silence, by Ruth Haley Barton. In it, she chronicles the dangerous and liberating story of Elijah, who not only wanted to run for his life, but actually did.

It started with a victory.

You know the story. Up against 450 prophets of Baal and a feckless king on Mount Carmel, Elijah calls on God, and God comes through. Stones and wood and sacrifice are all consumed in an apocalyptic fireball, and all the people saw it. And then, rain finally fell on the parched ground, signaling a victory for God and for Elijah that would be talked about for the next several thousand years.

This is the pastor's daydream, which never happens: your enemies are vanquished, you are vindicated, and everybody sees it.

It was a very good day for Elijah.

But it was followed by one of his worst days.

Jezebel, the manipulative power behind King Ahab, sends a message to Elijah, promising to kill him before the day is over. Apparently, Jezebel has a history of making good on these kinds of promises, because in an instant, Elijah is gone.

I've gotten some nasty emails. I've received some letters that elicit fear and self-loathing. But I have not yet received an email from someone who promises to kill me before sundown.

When you get an email that knocks you down and threatens you, what rises up in you?

I wish I could say I had a thick skin and that those kinds of emails "just roll off my back." But they don't, and my guess is that they don't for you, either. But we pretend they do, even as the poisonous toxicity seeps into our veins and slowly kills us.

Elijah doesn't confront Jezebel. He doesn't stand firm. He doesn't go to his friends for advice. He doesn't trust God.

He runs.

He runs all the way into the wilderness, and ends up alone, under a sparse broom bush. And he brings to God what actually is. No platitudes. No clichés. No thundering, faith-filled prayer. In the wilderness, Elijah lays the barren truth out there, naked and unvarnished.

"I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I'm no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under that spectacularly ordinary broom bush, and fell asleep.

For those of us that want to run, this is our prayer.

When you want to quit, the most courageous thing you can do is to stop pretending you don't want to quit. When we run to the wilderness, we find the truth; about ourselves, and about God.

Fortunately, all throughout the Scriptures, the wilderness is the place where God speaks.

It's where Moses turned aside.

It's where Hagar was finally noticed.

It's where Jacob wrestled.

Elijah is woken from his sleep to an invitation: "Get up and eat." An angel has prepared bread and water for him, and it's sitting right by his head, so he doesn't even have to get up. I find it fascinating that when we are at our most depleted, God shows up with basic stuff. When I'm desperate, I'm always asking for a WORD FROM GOD, and maybe all God wants me to do is take a nap, and have a snack. So Elijah simply eats and drinks what is laid before him, and goes back to sleep.

When he is woken a second time, he is given an invitation to a journey: "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you."

This time, there is no mention of a jug of water and a loaf of bread. And yet we read that Elijah eats and drinks, and is strengthened by "that food."

What is "that food" that he ate? Was it leftovers from his earlier meal? Was it a different meal? Or was it something else entirely?

What is it that strengthens someone who previously wanted to die?

Whatever it was, "that food" strengthened Elijah for the arduous forty-day journey to Mount Horeb, where he would meet with God and receive instructions for the rest of his ministry life.

The Rabbis say that whenever the number forty is mentioned in the Old Testament, it signals that something old is dying, and something new is about to be born.

So maybe you need to run. For your life. To the wilderness.

Where you can finally be honest.

Where God might speak.

Where you might be invited on a journey.

Where God might finally give you "that food."

Where something might die, and something might be born.

Maybe it's time to run.

Steve Wiens is the Associate Senior Pastor at Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, MN, where he lives with his wife and three sons. You can follow him at his daily blog SteveWiens.com and on twitter.