Lonely to be Loved! | Matthew 28:20, 1 Kings 19:1-9 | Get Up and EAT!

Don’t hang your head when you get lonely. God will never leave your side, and He will never let you go. He will be with you “to the end of the age.”

Show Notes:

• Watch We Are Messengers video: Love
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Transcription:

Don’t hang your head when you get lonely. No! I’ll never leave your side and don’t go thinking you’re the only one that can’t get it right. Yeah. You got my love, love, love, love down in your soul. Yeah, you got my love, love, love. And I won’t let you go.

Kicking off the Bible for Busy People. Podcast today with some lyrics from We Are Messengers. It’s their song called Love. Hi, I’m Erica, your host, and at the end of this episode, I’m going to tell you a special story about that song, but I wanted to share the words with you because they’re so apropos for our topic this week. I’ve been telling you that most of us, almost half of us in this country feel lonely right now. And the good news that I’ve been sharing with you as well is that when you and I open up God’s Word, those feelings of loneliness decrease by 30%. Now, if I were to see a sweater on sale at TJ Maxx for 30% off, I’m probably going to go for it. So, you and I are reminding each other all this week that we are never alone because God is with us. As a matter of fact, in Matthew 28:20, Jesus says this, be sure of this. Listen to that.

Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Another translation says, to the end of time. So take a deep breath today and remember, Jesus did not stay dead. He’s alive and he is alive in you. And that is wonderful and that is true. But if you’re like me, some days you feel kind of dead inside. You feel the opposite of a life. You feel drained physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. But thank God we don’t have to stay in those places. And today we’re going to read about a man who struggled with this, just like we do a prophet, one of God’s mail carriers named Elijah. He was so exhausted from wrestling with the evil deeds of a wicked queen named Jezebel, and a wicked king, her husband, Ahab, that he was just done. Like put a fork in me. Done. You feel like that today? Come on, join me now. In one kings in the Bible, chapter 19, beginning in verse one,

When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal. 2 So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: “May the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you just as you killed them.”

Imagine getting a text like that, right?

Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. 4 Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”

He had nothing left. Maybe that’s you today. There’s no gas left in your tank. Let’s read on together.

Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!” 6 He looked around and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.

Wow. I want to pitch a small tent here and just say, sometimes we need a nap and a snack. Don’t we? We need to take the time to refresh ourselves. And congratulations by the way, because you are doing that right now. You could have fled to Netflix. You could have started just mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. I do that sometimes too. But you came here, you said, No, I want to open God’s word. I want to be refreshed by reading what God wrote to me. Think about that. You made that choice today. Okay, so verse seven now.

Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. 9 There he came to a cave, where he spent the night.

The Lord refreshed Elijah with an angel visit. Elijah was all alone in the wilderness. He was fearing for his life. So not only was he lonely, he was terrified. He didn’t know if somebody was going to kill him while he slept. I wonder if it was restful sleep. Although thinking back on what we just read, if an angel touched him as he slept, maybe God blessed him with a peaceful sleep. I mean, wouldn’t that be cool? I would imagine that’s how it happened. I wonder if you are having an Elijah moment right now. You are in a wilderness season in your life. You feel alone and you’re scared. Maybe you can’t even put a name to what it is. You just have a feeling of dread. Sometimes anxiety can be thrust upon us and we don’t even know where it came from.

Yesterday my husband and I were walking on the beach and I was feeling anxious and I said, honey, let’s stop. And we sat and prayed together on a piece of driftwood and I felt lighter when we stood up. Listen, stop right now and go to the Lord and ask him to refresh you. He will come to you like he came to Elijah. His peace is real. Just call in his name, the name of Jesus, and then get up and eat. Get up and have something nourishing to eat and take a deep breath and start again. God will give you strength for the journey.

Alright. Remember we began today’s episode with some lyrics to the song “Love” By We Are Messengers. They sang that at one of their concerts last year and somebody was listening in the audience who was ready to take their life. But when they heard that song, everything changed. They remembered they didn’t have to hang their head because they felt lonely or scared. They remembered God was with them, and it changed everything. If you are lonely today, don’t give up. Don’t give up. Get up and eat, for you are so loved.

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