Fear of Man

Hello Friendly People
Looking at Elijah Chapter 19 today.
    Elijah is in a state of fear and depression and finds himself full of disgust as he sits under a tree and requests that he might die.
V4 He said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers."
    We have all read this and can remember a day when we were so utterly done that we were certain we wouldn't make it through another day. He looks around him, sin is rampant, evil people are in charge and he is sure the days of the Godly prophets are over. God hears him, as He does us, when we cry out in pain. God commissions Elijah to anoint Elisha as his replacement.
   Do you wonder  what your reaction would be if you are plowing away in the fields and the most respected prophet, the one everyone feared as knowing the very voice of God, approaches you and covers you with his cloak?  I don't know enough about bible history to know if they were already acquainted and if Elisha knew this was coming or not. He does say, "let me kiss my folks goodbye." Done -just like that! No questions asked. My wonder is this, didn't Elisha know that all the prophets had been killed? That he and Elijah would be next? That Jezebel had already put the word out for Elijah's assassination? What courage! No fear here.......What must God do in us to push us past fear of men, fear of failure?

   Charles Swindoll writes about a very brave soul who persevered in great discouragement and pain. See how fast you can identify him.

   "There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen....(and) now he belongs to the ages."

When he was seven, his family was forced out of their home because of a legal technicality. He had to work to help support them.
At age nine, his mother died.
At age twenty-two, he lost his job, wanted to go to law school but was not educated enough.
At twenty-three, he went into debt to become a partner in a small store.
Three years later his business partner died, leaving him a huge debt that took years to repay.
At age twenty-eight, after developing a romantic relationship with a young lady for four years, he asked her to marry him. She said no.
An earlier youthful love he shared with a lovely girl ended in heartache at her death.
At thirty-seven, on his third try, he was finally elected to Congress.
Two years later he ran again and failed to be re-elected. I should add it was about this time he had what some would call a nervous breakdown.
At forty-five, he ran for the Senate and lost.
Two years later, he was defeated for the nomination for Vice President.
At forty-nine, he ran for the Senate again....and lost.
Add to this an endless barrage of criticism, misunderstanding, ugly and false rumors, and deep periods of depression and you realize it's no wonder he was snubbed by his peers and despised by multitudes, hardly the envy of his day.
At fifty-one, however, he was elected President of the United States.......but his second term was cut short by assassination.
   By now you know it was the most inspirational and highly regarded President in American history, Abraham Lincoln.
  What a strange lot we are! Enamored by the dazzling lights, the fickle applause of the public, the splash of success, we seldom trace the lines that led to the flimsy and fleeting pinnacle. Bitter hardship. Unfair and undeserved abuses. Loneliness and loss. Humiliating failures. Debilitating disappointments. Agony beyond comprehension suffered in the valley and crevices of the climb from bottom to top. How short sighted!
   Instead of accepting the fact that no one deserves the right to lead without first perservering through pain and heartache and failure, we resent those intruders. We treat them as enemies, not friends, capricious gods. They are not hurriedly stuck onto skin like tattoos. No, those who are really worth following have paid their dues. They have come through the furnace melted, beaten, reshaped, and tempered. To use the words of the teacher from Tarsus, they bear in their bodies "the brand-marks of Jesus" (Galatians 6:17) Or, as one paraphrases it, they carry  "the scars of the whipping and wounds" which link them to all mankind.

Write down five painful times from your life which have contributed toward who you are today. Thank God for what those trials produced in you.