Dessert Break

1 Kings 19:4b-5

‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said, ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat’.

I was walking around Megamall last year when a store caught my attention: Stressed-Desserts. T’was brilliant! They sure got the nods of the overworked, unappreciated, feeling-underpaid passers-by. I don’t know with men, but ladies find sweets and pastries soothing and therapeutic. It buys us some time to step back, rethink, and reconsider things. Work is where the heat is. A breath of fresh air over baked goodies and with very good friends is a well-deserved break. We may leave a café with work issues still unresolved, but at least we found much strength to face it anew. Not bad for a hundred peso serving.

Elijah wore stress all over him in his every encounter with the king. Imagine his bucket of boldness in addressing Ahab of his sins. You would think a hundred times and sweat a thousand more doing that to your boss.  Next, he challenged Ahab and his Baal prophets to a showdown. T’was a full day waiting and all Israel watching ‘til his turn to pray. God answering with fire from heaven may have not surprised him, but it surely awed him. God’s victory called for death to the false ones. It was Elijah who led the rally. Ever killed a man? Imagine the heavy throbs of psychological exhaustion to that. Multiply to 450 and you’ll understand why soldiers need debriefing after a war. But there was no break for Elijah. His sked showed a week more of intense prayer for rain. No, he was not in his bedside doing that. He was still up in that mountain, bent down to the ground, face between his knees. Then came the rain, Three and a half years of drought meant their bodies were not accustomed to baths. And he had his while running from Carmel to Jezreel, 40kms they say. Arriving there with high hopes, he was greeted with a death threat instead, and so he ran back for his life, this time with an estimated 160km and a day. Tired, hungry, disoriented, cold rain, hot desert, fear  - - I’d cry for death halfway. The angel himself said ‘the journey is too much for you’. We’d probably expect God to comfort him with more promises or, maybe reprimand him for giving up on life.  But God’s answer? A cake of bread baked in hot coals, and a jar of water. And another after his second sleep. 

As Christians, we do sometimes spiritualize too much and push ourselves with answers when the going gets tough. We encourage each other, text relevant verses, and continue serving regardless.  Nothing wrong with that. But God is never a slave-driver. He doesn’t give us full skeds to run our lives with purposeful, no-nonsense events for His kingdom. He Himself did not require seven days in creation. He paused at the end of each day and rested on the seventh to bless it and say, ‘It was good’. Do you think it would have been ‘more perfect’ if He worked a little more on Sunday morning, or applied for overtime? Even Jesus at the end of His sermon on the mount provided food to the five thousand. He made them sit down in groups of hundreds and fifties. They all ate and were satisfied. It was  God’s way of ending a full day. Go mark your skeds for a dessert break. It should be a guiltless pleasure :>