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So You Want to be an Elijah, Ha?

So you want the spirit of Elijah, but can you eat the food of Elijah? Imagine with me for a second that God took your request seriously; what would happen to you?

Imagine you’re on a hike and you come on a man living by a small stream in a deep valley who is hiding, because there is a price on his head. Look at him; he has a huge straggly untrimmed beard, his hair is unwashed, greasy and uncut. He smells and is dressed in nothing but a leather loincloth and it is not the nice leather like we picture Hollywood Indians wearing. The leather is scraps of animal flesh, barley tanned and it is from body of an animal that died of drought and famine. Ravens are feeding him there, scavengers, in the dirt near the man is dropped hunks of flesh pulled from road kill and scraps of bread: this he dusts off and sets down to eat.

You see everyone covets the spirit and power of Elijah, but can you drink his cup? Eat his portion? We all say boldly, “These are days of Elijah,” are they really? You see we believe we will see angels delivering food as they did to Elijah:

1Ki 19:5-8 

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.

And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.

And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.

And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

  

We believe we will see the miracle of the widow’s oil and meal, as in the day of Elijah:

1Ki 17:14-16

For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth.

And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah.

But to get to all of that, you have to eat the raven-food or you won’t live to see the days after!

1Ki 17:5-6

 So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.

Can you drink of his cup and eat of his portion? Really? Sure, we see and want the miracles of Elijah, but we don’t like the diet! How about we try to touch just the outside of this, just scratch the surface of approaching the real and actual: what I call the feasts of Elijah. “Meat, bread and water two times a day” and then “bread” (no larger a portion then palm of your hand) and water.  As you fast, consider the true as you partake of the similitude and thanking God that you got your meat and bread from the grocery store; nicely wrapped and refrigerated, and not the ravens or the bottom of the barrel.

Hebrews 11:37-38

…they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.