Day 22 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Charles Swindoll’s book, Elijah, A Man of Heroism and Humility continues with the boot camp analogy in chapter 3: Advanced Training at Zarephath. He describes Elijah’s stay in the town of Zarephath as a crucible— “a place designed by God to further refine the prophet and make a major difference in the remainder of his life” (page 44).

He talks about that your refining never ends. As soon as you’ve made it through one test, there’s another one waiting for you. But he emphasizes that God knows where we are going (and if we knew, we would probably be scared stiff!) and that we need to handle problems with faith, not fear.

On page 51, as he talks about leaning on our faith in God, Swindoll says, “You can’t encourage somebody else to believe the improbably if you haven’t believed the impossible.” A couple of pages later he warns people to, “Be careful about any teaching that leads to passivity. Resting in the Lord is one thing; passive indifference is something else entirely.” This is a good reminder to me that resting in the Lord doesn’t mean sitting back and letting someone else do the work.

Chapter four is entitled Standing in the Shadow of God. Here he talks about the woman’s son who dies. She goes on to blame Elijah for her son’s death. He points out that Elijah takes the pounding and when the woman is finished, he simply says, “Give me your son” (1 Kings 17:19). The woman, who just got done blaming Elijah for the death of her son, turns him over to the prophet without hesitation. And Elijah who had been silent as the grieving woman let loose on him, didn’t remain silent when he talked to God. And for the first time in history, someone was raised from the dead.

At the end of the chapter, Swindoll gives us this little bit of advice that we need to remind ourselves of during our trials: “By God’s appointment, in God’s keeping, under His training, for His time.” The story of Elijah embodies this and is something everyone needs to exemplify in their own lives.

Happy reading!