God doesn’t quit a quitter

Then he lay down and slept under a broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat! —1 Kings 19:5

I know a guy whose coping mechanism is to quit. Things too hard? Quit. Coworker not respecting your extra hard work? Quit. Shortsighted managers not appreciating your vision, dedication, or talent? Yep. You guessed it. Quit.

“Quitting” for this guy is the stress buster. It beats binge eating or anger management courses.

Elijah is one who quits. This prophet, who clearly experienced success in his career, is done. The good is gone. Why? Fellow prophets who placated to the powerful died as a result of his godly action. And the queen? She totally has it in for him. With her memo on his desk, the “yikes!” is right there when she says, “You die or I do.”

So, he quits. To make it this clear, he runs far and fast. Maybe he runs a bit too far and a bit too fast because when he stops, he’s exhausted.

Maybe this exhaustion surprised him. Maybe he is like you in that he takes on too much, and then, suddenly, the wall he hits really, really hard wipes him out. If you work too many hours with too little sleep or your “go clock” keeps going and going, you may wind up where Elijah is. You know you’re where Elijah is when your thinking is not just “off,” it’s dangerous.

God does for Elijah what God does for us. The designer of the human body sends Elijah to sleep. 1 Kings 19:5 doesn’t quite put it that way; Elijah goes to sleep on his own accord; but our Creator makes the body to take only so much stress and strain, and Elijah had had both.

There, in Elijah’s sleep, God does for this prophet what God does for us. He provides. For Elijah, it was food and drink. For you, it might be something else altogether. But God takes care of those who quit—even on Him. Trust me because the guy mentioned at the start of this prep is me.

PRAYER: You never quit on us quitters, God. Thank you for that. And thank you for sleep, for food, for chill places like broom trees to find and for making us stop—even when we do not want to. Amen.