I want to share with you my favorite story from the Bible. It’s about God, death, and best of all… eating. It’s about a guy named Elijah who has to take the one ring to rule them all back to Mordor to …. oh wait that’s Elijah Wood and that’s a different thing. Comedy! But seriously, this story has always stuck with me and been a source of comfort and I hope it does the same for you. Did I mention it’s about eating?

If you want to read the story for yourself it’s in 1st Kings and starts in Chapter 18. What follows will be a very loose and possibly offensive paraphrasing.

So there’s this dude named Elijah and he’s a prophet for God. He’s basically a bullhorn that God is using to yell at people to shape up or some bad things are going to happen. As a result of this, Elijah didn’t really have a lot of pals. He was like Simon Cowell telling everyone they were dreadful. People don’t want to hear it even when he is right.

Now, a lot of people were starting to worship this popular deity named Oprah (kidding! named Baal).  So they decide to have a big showdown. The Super Bowl for Spiritual Beings. A God-Off.  The game was simple – put some raw meat on two stone piles and see which one catches on fire.

The Baal crowd wins the coin toss and elects to receive – they start doing their rituals but no fire. The Bible says Elijah started taunting them saying to yell louder, maybe it will wake their God up. I like thinking Elijah was kind of a smart ass. Long story short: no fire. So then it’s Elijah’s turn and this bad ass prophet tells people to pour water on this rocks. Then he Tebowed and prayed to God to show himself as the real head honcho – and a fire came down and burned up the rocks and everything. Game, set, match. So Elijah gets a trip to Disneyland and happily ever after? Not quite…

See the Baal folk all get killed in the story and some people go back to tell the queen (who is on Team Baal) that Elijah just wiped out her entourage. She gets royally pissed (ROYALLY! Puns, people!)  and orders that he be hunted down and killed. This is where the story gets good…

Elijah finds out that he’s on the Most Wanted list and takes off into the desert.

Think about that for a second. This guy just watched frickin’ fire come down out of the sky and burn up some rocks that had been super-soaked. He got to see some pretty convincing proof that God is real, powerful, and real powerful. And he still runs away? If this were a movie I’d be yelling at the screen but honestly, I do the same thing. I hide from things I shouldn’t even though I know better.

So fast forward to Elijah sitting under a tree in the desert all alone and saying, “Go ahead and kill me, God!”  He was pretty much the first emo kid I think. After a while he gets all cried out and falls asleep. When he wakes up, an angel is sitting there with a jar of water and is baking some bread like it’s a Subway location. The angel tells him to eat so Elijah grubs and then falls asleep because – well we’ve all taken food coma naps on Thanksgiving.

And here is the the best part…

Elijah wakes up and an angel is STILL there with some water and is baking some bread. And he says, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” You see, our boy Eli was about to have to walk across a desert. On the other side of that desert was a mountain where Elijah would have the ultimate experience – he was being invited to talk to God. But he still had that long walk to get there and God knew he wasn’t going to make it all dehydrated from crying. So he sent food and water to give him energy. Even after that meal God knew it wasn’t enough, so more food was sent until he had enough energy to fulfill his destiny.

That story is awesome to me because: God knows when I need seconds. He knows when I’ll be facing a hard time ahead and He provides just enough to get me through that time. The Bible talks about him being “sufficient” and a “provider” and I believe that’s true. I think we all go through times of Spring and Winter, like monsoon and drought – we are given enough to get by.

Sometimes it’s a kind word from a friend, a found $20 bill, or sometimes it’s an abnormally beautiful sunset – our “bread and water” could come in any form but my hope for you and myself is that we recognize during our droughts that we are thirsty for a reason and are being called on a journey toward a mountain of our own.