The Servant Left Behind
Read The Daily:
Elijah was terrified and ran for his life. When he reached Beersheba, in Judah, he left his servant there. 1 Kings 19:3
Elijah was running, and he was scared. He’d just faced down hundreds of prophets of Baal, and now Jezebel was coming for him. So, he ran. And in his panic, he left his servant behind. Think about that for a second. He had someone with him, someone who likely cared about him, but in his desperate need to escape, he went off alone.
How often do we do the same thing? We have people around us who want to help, who want to listen, but when we hit that wall, when we feel completely burned out, we push them away. We think, “I can handle this alone,” or worse, we isolate ourselves and then complain that nobody cares. It’s like we create our own solitude, suffering in silence because we’ve decided we have to do it all by ourselves.
We were never meant to carry these heavy burdens alone. God built us for community, for people who can share the load, who can watch out for us. When burnout tells us we’re all by ourselves, that no one understands, it’s lying. It’s trying to get us to isolate, to spiral further down, away from the very people who could help us up.
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Prayer for the Day
God what are you showing me? What am I going to do about it?
God help me to see one person that I can serve through a kind word, random act of kindness, or simple gift today?
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Read The New Testament In A Year
The sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve before a single letter of God’s Law wears out. Using the legalities of divorce as a cover for lust is adultery; Using the legalities of marriage as a cover for lust is adultery. “There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption. A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep. All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man’s table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores. “Then he died, this poor man, and was taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I’m in agony in this fire.’ “But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It’s not like that here. Here he’s consoled and you’re tormented. Besides, in all these matters there is a huge chasm set between us so that no one can go from us to you even if he wanted to, nor can anyone cross over from you to us.’ “The rich man said, ‘Then let me ask you, Father: Send him to the house of my father where I have five brothers, so he can tell them the score and warn them so they won’t end up here in this place of torment.’ “Abraham answered, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.’ “‘I know, Father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but they’re not listening. If someone came back to them from the dead, they would change their ways.’ “Abraham replied, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, they’re not going to be convinced by someone who rises from the dead.'” Luke 16:17-31
Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it’s like from his own experience. But that also meaos that he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as the people’s. No one elects himself to this honored position. He’s called to it by God, as Aaron was. Neither did Christ presume to set himself up as high priest, but was set apart by the One who said to him, “You’re my Son; today I celebrate you!” In another place God declares, “You’re a priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.” While he lived on earth, anticipating death, Jesus cried out in pain and wept in sorrow as he offered up priestly prayers to God. Because he honored God, God answered him. Though he was God’s Son, he learned trusting-obedience by what he suffered, just as we do. Then, having arrived at the full stature of his maturity and having been announced by God as high priest in the order of Melchizedek, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who believingly obey him. I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one–baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong. Hebrews 5:1-14