Same Place
- AfraOpoku
- October 5, 2025
- Uncategorized
- 0 Comments
Two men
Two prophets
Both discouraged.
Both despondent
God steps in to give an angle seldom seen for His struggling children.
Elijah was the first.
He’d had his wins but now that he was hunted, fear and weariness had overtaken him.1
Elijah had had his mountain top experience2 but where was God, now that he was the prey and why did the evil that had a bounty on his head continue to exist?
Things felt so bad that Elijah wanted to die.3
Scary that someone that formidable could get knocked so low.
Insightful that even the strongest can be swept in a torrent of discouragement.
The strategy God used with Elijah isn’t one I often pay attention to.
God asked him to go back.4
Not to a new place.
Not to a new group of people who would obey.
To counteract the evil of Jezebel and Ahab, God had placed Hazael, Jehu and Elisha in Israel.5
Elijah thought he would have to do the heavy lifting but God had his stalwarts in place and a plan that would see to the end of Ahab’s dynasty.6
Push pause.
Guy number two doesn’t make quite as big an entrance as Elijah but he certainly made a splash.
Jonah’s opening act is that of a man on the run.7
He’s not running from the law.
He’s not running from a man.
He’s running from God.
That is laughable.
How do you do that?
Which borders are strong enough to keep God out?
Where do you go to escape the all-seeing one?
In this case, Jonah’s desperation was stronger than his logic and after his sins found him out, he threw in the towel – in more ways than one.8
For all intents and purposes, God should have picked someone else.
Of all the people on the planet, God picked a man smelling of fish guts to proclaim salvation to Nineveh.9
Easy would have been to start over with someone who would be obedient the first time.
Turns out God isn’t a fan of easy.
Jonah got to go back to what he had been called to do and an entire city was saved. 10
One of the best quotes I ever heard is Before God chose you, He factored in your stupidity.
If you think about it, He factors in a lot more.
Our failures, our inconsistencies, our fears and our discouragement.
How else would you explain Jesus?
The easy thing would have been for God to wipe out all of Adams seed and start over. Instead, we see a God who would rather hurt himself than give up on us.
Good news, because we all get tossed by our feelings and circumstances on more occasions than we’d like.
He’s not going to bypass you because you’re inadequate.
He’s going to empower you in spite of you, to show forth His glory.
Where you saw defeat, you will see victory.
Now go back.
- 1Ki 19v3
- 1Ki 18 v 37-39
- 1Ki 19 v 4
- 1Ki 19 v 15
- 1Ki 19 v 17
- 2Ki 10 v 11
- Jnh 1 v 3
- Jnh 1 v 12
- Jnh 3 v 1
- Jnh 3 v 10