Thursday's Thoughts

"the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10),

Our live-in grandson loved helium-filled balloons when he was younger, and I was thinking about the last one we bought. It was from the dollar store, and we chose it out of a book. The clerk got it out of the drawer. It went through three distinct phases. First, it was totally flat and folded up into a little square. Then the clerk gave it a shot of helium that made it big and fly high. In fact, without a string to tie it down, it would have flown away and ended up somewhere in another country. I knew from past experience, though, that there was another phase coming. It's flying high days can't last forever. One day before long we found it all soft, mushy, and slowly shriveling up on the floor.

The life and times of a helium balloon aren't all that different from the life and times of folks like you and me. We start out flat, we open our lives to Jesus Christ, He enlarges our life, gives us some victorious seasons where we're flying high, and then often overnight, we've gone flat and we've hit the ground. It doesn't have to be that way.

If you know that cycle all too well, you need to see how this cycle worked in the life of one of God's great servants in the Bible. Elijah was one of the most powerful of God's ancient prophets. And he was flying high in God that day on Mount Carmel when he single-handedly challenged 450 prophets of the idol Baal to a spiritual showdown. It was sort of a spiritual "Gunfight at the O. K. Corral." Elijah's challenge is to see whose God will consume with fire from heaven the sacrifice that's been laid on the altar.

Our word for today from the Word of God begins with 1 Kings 18:37 as Elijah prays in front of this army of false prophets: "Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You are turning their hearts back again." The entire prayer is only 60 words, but Elijah mentions God nine times in those 60 words. On Mt. Carmel, it is clearly all about the Lord God. And the fire falls, consuming the sacrifice and causing everybody to cry, "The Lord! He is God!"

Now fast forward to the next chapter. The king has threatened Elijah's life and in fear he runs to the desert. He sits under a tree, and in the Bible's words, "prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough, Lord,' he said. 'Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.' ... I have been very zealous for the Lord God ... I am the only one left'" (1 Kings 19:4-5, 10). On Mt. Carmel, it was all about God. In the desert, it was all about me. And that's the difference between flying high and falling flat. During the victory time, it's all about the Lord. But often in the aftermath of a victory, something happens that makes it suddenly all about me, and we crash.

Jesus said the devil is a thief who comes "to steal and kill and destroy" (John 10:10). And every time God does something good in your life, the devil is there with some cheap shot he wants to use to rob you of the joy of what God has done. Don't fall for it. It's like you've just won the Super Bowl, you're walking off the field, and your defeated opponent says, "I'll make you pay for this." And he gives you a bloody nose. Yes, he hurt you a little, but he can't change the outcome. You still won, and nothing he can do can change the victory. So when the joy-robber comes in after the victory and tries to get you all focused on yourself, you tell him, "I know who this is, and I am not falling for it! We won, and you can't change it!"

Life won't always be "flying high" moments like Elijah's Mt. Carmel, but you can be consistently joyful and hopeful and positive, even when some of the air goes out. Because "the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10), not the joy of your circumstances. It's your Lord who inflates you with His joy, His victory, so you don't have to lie deflated in a corner ever again!