But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and sat down under a juniper tree: and requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life-–.1 Kings 19:4
Life is tough and we all long for relief. Sadly, for some the desire for relief is so strong that they take their own life–but that is the cowards way out. Any fool can do that. The real challenge is living, not dying. Suicide is perhaps the most selfish thing you can do. None of us have the right to end our lives. Yet even a great man like Elijah can become so desperate that he, at least for a moment, desires death over life. But there is something better.
J. R. Miller wrote: “He was sorely discouraged. It seemed to him that all he had done, had come to nothing. There are few things we need more to guard against than discouragement. When once we come under its influence, it makes us weak, robbing us of our hope and making cowards of us. Many a life is discrowned and drawn down to failure, through discouragement.
It is surely a sad picture: this greatest of the old prophets lying there under the little bush, in the wilderness, longing to die! If he had died then and there, what an inglorious ending it would have made of his life! As it was, however, he lived to do further glorious work and to see great results from his contest with idolatry. God was kinder to him, than he knew.
It is wrong to wish ourselves dead. Life is God’s gift to us, a sacred trust for which we shall have to give account. While God keeps us living—he has something for us to do. Our prayer should be for grace to do our duty bravely and well unto the end. From Elijah’s after-experience, we learn that we would never be cast down by any discouraging experiences. The things we think have failed are often only slowly ripening into rich success. We have only to be faithful to God and to duty, and we may always rejoice. What seems failure—is often best success.“
