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The characters and stories of the Old Testament form a rich tapestry, revealing both the best and worst of the human condition—and, most importantly, how God relates to us.
Based on the Living Covenant book series, this podcast explores the sometimes messy lives of those who lived under God’s first covenant, asking what these blessedly unsanitised saints can teach us about living out our faith in relationship with a God who promises never to leave us or forsake us.
Welcome to the Living Covenant Podcast, where we journey through the messy human stories of the Old Testament explore what it means to live in covenant with a promise keeping God. I'm your host, Zanita. Let's dive in.
Jarrod, Jarrod, Jarrod, you don't really need an introduction, but for anyone who is stumbling on this podcast for the very first time, tell us who you are and what has inspired you to create this series
Zanita, thanks for having me to chat today. I am Jarrod, as you've mentioned. I am the editor of the Adventist Record magazine and also the Signs of the Times magazine. In my role in that space, it's been a privilege to create content, often doing different writing projects. This project has been very exciting, for me because I like the stories of the Old Testament.
I really enjoy engaging with some of those characters that are lesser known some of the ones that are well known, but we find new insights. 'Cause oftentimes we take their stories kind of like a Sabbath school, Sunday school version of the story, and It's very, simplified, it's made for kids, and that's okay.
That has its place, but it means we miss a lot of the nuance or the real insight we can get from that story. There's real human problems and there's real human struggles and there's a real God who comes through with his living covenant or his living promises. He is a good God and he shows up time and again in the Old Testament in different people's lives, and I think we have some things to learn from their lives, which is why we did this series.
You know, find new writers, to find diverse writers and find people who could speak about some of the characters and their own experience. And therefore as readers, as people enjoying some of these pieces and listening to some of the interviews you've done in this series, we can then get insights into our own lives and how to live out our faith practically because of what those characters have lived through and wrestled through and struggled through.
Yeah, I think a lot of people are often afraid to open up or to keep reading the Old Testament because there are some hectic stories in there, there are some confusing stories in there. And so- Mm-hmm ... people obviously tend to lean towards the New Testament more. But I have really loved this series because, like you've said, I've just learnt all these incredible stories about people who are incredibly flawed, but also do amazing things for the Lord, and a lot of them are very relatable.
But, um, yeah, it's just- Mm-hmm ... made me more excited to read the Old Testament, so thank you for initiating it.
Oh, that's good. That's part of the purpose of these series to engage our readership with getting back into the Bible. "Huh, is that true? I haven't read that before. Let me get back to the source text.
Let me have a read of the original story. Oh, wow, you know, I can see that in there." So that's, that's part of the purpose of this series.
Now, I'm guessing that being the one who created this series, you either had first pick of the characters or you got left with the last one. Do you wanna tell us why you chose Elijah?
Yeah, so this is sort of the third series that we've done in this sort of style. And each time I have somewhat left myself till last so that I could plug any holes we didn't get filled. So we give out a whole big list of characters and people choose, their character, and then I thought, "I'll leave myself a little bit later."
And so Elijah was one of those, but it is a character I enjoy, I have some affinity with. I was doing a leadership training course last year, and in one of those things we had to look at the story of Elijah as a sort of leadership meditation. And I reflected on his story, and I heard things about his story that I hadn't noticed before about potentially his burnout after Carmel and some of the wrestle that he had there, and I could really relate the time I was in my life at that time.
I was like, "Wow, this stuff is gold. I need to understand this. I need to grapple with it." And I had to think about it for a few days or weeks afterwards because I was like, "Wow, there was so much in that, I need to keep coming back to Elijah's story and thinking it through." So while I was one of the last ones to be run in the series, I suppose, I am very glad that I was able to meditate on Elijah, because I think his story is quite phenomenal.
It's amazing.
The Lord saved him for you, maybe.
Yeah. I think it... Look- ... Zanita, I've done this for a while, and these things work out you know, people say, "Oh, God's ways are mysterious," or, or that sort of, um, sentiment. It's so true. I just see the Holy Spirit work these things out, and the person who needs the character gets the character.
Sometimes people don't follow through, and don't get their particular piece done, and by the time I get assigned mine, I'm like, "Wow, this is perfect." It, it, it works out really well. And I know other people that have had that experience. "Oh, this one actually I really needed at this time in my life." So I definitely think that happens, and I, I definitely attribute it to God's handiwork.
I think that was the same for mine. I wrote on Hosea, and I actually didn't want to write on Hosea at all because it was a very, vulnerable piece for me to share. But it was, as I was looking through them, for months I was looking through the list, and I was just waiting for someone else to take it, and it was never getting taken. But a lot of people have thanked me for that piece, so I, I agree. I think God definitely does-
Mm
Lead us to the right person. I would love to know a little more about Elijah. I think a lot of us when we think of Elijah, we think of the big showdown on Mount Carmel, we think of the never-ending pots of oil and flour we think of God feeding the bread to him from the ravens. But I wanna know a bit more about the part of Elijah's life that you've talked about. Chapter 19 of, I think it's 1 Kings. Um, and- Mm-hmm ... this is a, a story that I've heard talked a lot about in regards to mental health, but I actually read it again. Before I do these interviews, I'll kind of look over the character again. And I think after reading your article, after looking at the story again, I saw some new things, and some of them made me laugh, and then some of them made me be like, "Oh man, this is so humanly humbling and relatable," and was kind of like a mirror to my face.
Um, so I'm excited to get into that. But tell us about this part of Elijah's life
Elijah's amazing, first of all. There's a lot of, stories. I remember in My Bible Friends, you know, um, you know, the oil story, that doesn't run out. The ravens feeding him in the wilderness. Amazing. You know, just the providence of God, the, the, the drought and the famine, and the showdown on Carmel.
Like, those things are amazing. But what people don't talk about a lot is what you've said is in chapter 18, chapter 19, what happens after Carmel? And that's sort of why I picked this part of the story, because in 1,200 words you can't really do justice to his whole life story. There are so many episodes and examples of amazing things happening, God working with him.
and Carmel is the, probably the biggest one, the obvious one, but what happens after Carmel I've only really heard in context of, "This is what happens when you have a mountaintop experience and then you burn out, you flame out, you get depressed," or, "Yeah, Elijah was depressed," you know? People invoke that sort of mental health thing.
And I'm not saying Elijah didn't have, say, a mental health episode in this passage. It may well be the case. Um, but I guess just on a human level, I just wanted to read back through it and understand. And that was the relatable part for me at the time of writing, and even in the lead-up to and thinking about this.
This is a season I feel like I went through, this burnout season. And so- It was the part that spoke to me the most because, yeah, mountaintop experiences, I've had those, but this was a season of, difficulty. And so basically after the showdown Ahab goes home and he tells Queen Jezebel, "Hey, this guy, God's prophet, just killed all your prophets.
There's 400, uh, 900 of them. They're all been wiped out, and this is what happened." And she threatens his life. She basically says, "I'm gonna kill him. That's it. He's gonna pay for this," you know? I said in my article, like a Disney villain, you know? Uh, that's just how I picture, if you've seen Snow White, you know, the evil queen.
she's just like this evil villain, like, "He's gonna pay for this." And so Elijah runs, he goes on the run, which is so interesting because he's seen God's power, he's had fire from heaven, and he's confident in it, too. Elijah's there taunting the prophets. He puts water all over the altar, and it gets burnt up.
Even the stones, even the wood, even the bull, even the ground around it was scorched. Like, God has over-answered his prayers. In a sense, that's how it feels. Like, God accepted his sacrifice so fully that everything was gone.
Yeah.
And so he's seen this outrageous demonstration of God's power. Like, it didn't self-combust.
It didn't come up from the burning bush, like, oh, there's a flame in the altar. Look, it just did it. It says fire from heaven, so it's come. It's been a big sign, like a neon sign, like God is involved in this. And so we often reflect on that, and then Elijah gets threatened and he runs away. Like, it's a very human reaction.
If your life is at risk, get out of there. you know, run. So the adrenaline's pumping. Off he goes and it's funny 'cause then he's sort of saying, "I'm done. I want to die." Like-
He's so drained maybe. He's so maybe frustrated that he feels like this huge thing has been achieved, and yet nothing has happened, nothing has changed. Maybe he thought the people would stand up and revolt, overthrow the king, make God their number one, you know. He, he... I don't know what his expectations were, and often-
Mm
as humans, it's our unmet expectations that sort of depress us. We see a bit the same in the prophet Jonah's story, you know, his unmet expectations. He wanted certain things to happen that he thought would be humanly the best things to happen. He gets very upset when they don't happen.
Mm.
I can relate. I can very much relate. My unmet expectations are often what makes me most upset about stuff. So Elijah's there. The angel ministers to him. He walks for another 40 days to the mountain of God. He spends time in this cave, and God reveals himself to him, and they have some conversations back and forth. God speaks to Elijah.
Elijah answers. God s- asks again, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Elijah answers, and then God gives Elijah his next mission, the next part of his journey, and Elijah goes from there. We assume refreshed, he fulfills his commission. But yeah, that whole episode is very interesting 'cause it doesn't necessarily play out how we would expect it to play out.
Yeah, I wanna go back a little bit to part of that story where he runs away and then he asks God to take his life, because I think God's response is really interesting here. Obviously we see him send an angel who gives him food and water, which-
yeah, he's very gracious to him in that moment in just, Yes
allowing him to take what he needs and to rest. But how does he respond to Elijah's kind of, "Take my life"?
Yeah. He doesn't answer. I think this is, instructive for us because I've had difficult times and wanted God's answer, prayed for it- Mm craved it, and yet he doesn't give it. And I think that's probably, in hindsight, best for me. Because if I had a straight answer, a simple answer, I don't know how I would be after some time had passed. Would I be resentful of God? Would I, you know... Now, when I say God didn't speak it says an angel of the Lord comes to minister to him and, and sometimes people say in the Old Testament, I haven't done the word study on this, whether this is an angel of the Lord like in the sense of, you know, Jesus or, or, or is this just an angel.
We can't go beyond the text, I suppose, at this point. It is just an angel. And all the angel says to him is, "Arise and eat." And he provides him food, and then he goes back to sleep, has a nap, and then he says, "Arise and eat for the journey is too great for you." And he gave him food a second time, wakes him up, gives him food.
So he rose and ate and drank, and then on the strength of that food, 40 days, 40 nights to Horeb, the mount of God. So, like, God's answer was not to answer, but he did send-
Yeah ...
someone to feed and water Elijah to minister to his physical needs. So mentally- Mm ... emotionally, spiritually, he was all at sea.
But someone, God provides a presence to minister to him physically, which I think is- Mm ... so important. First that need is met physically, and then the angel says, " the journey is too much for you." Now, I've always assumed that God sent Elijah to the mountain at that point. Yeah. And he says well he says- Call me ... it's going to be a big journey, but he doesn't actually tell him to go.
Yeah.
It doesn't say whether he tells him to go or Elijah goes on his own steam. Mm. But it says he walked for those 40 days, and I get the picture, let's just say the angel didn't make him go which isn't in the text, you know.
It doesn't say that God directed him to go there. So let's say he went on his own steam. I love this picture of a man who even at his lowest point wants to go to the mountain of God. He wants to seek God. He wants- Mm ... to be in God's presence. He wants to go there.
The other thing in this part of the passage, he asked that he might die saying, "It is enough now, O Lord, take my life for I am no better than my fathers." Some people have read into that, you know, suicidal tendency or mental health, depression of, you know. I just wonder if it's like
He's so committed to his mission that he can't see his existence continuing beyond his mission. Mm. And he can't do his mission anymore. And so he asks God, " I, I need an out. I can't, I can't do what you've asked me to do. It's too much for me, and I'm weak. I'm no better than my forefathers." He's talking about his grandparents, his generations, or is he talking about the prophets that have gone before him? The judges, people that have led Israel, but been rejected. And he's like, "How can I, in my weak state, achieve any more than they did? They haven't done it. Like, take, my life away." I, I'm generous to Elijah when I'm reading this. I don't think he wanted death. I think he wanted to be relieved of his mission, and he knew that was his mission and that he had no other options.
Which makes God's response after their whole interaction, after the cave and after all the things It makes God's response that much more Beautiful, because God, again, doesn't directly answer his complaints, but he gives him what I think is the answer to this prayer right here. " May someone else carry the burden for ministry that I have been carrying."
Mm.
And God says, " Anoint your successor," you know? "Mentor this guy. Give it to him. Give him the mantle to carry." And so God does honor Elijah's prayer. He doesn't kill him. He gives someone else the mission, and he takes Elijah up in the fiery chariot to heaven. Mm. So he ends his suffering, he's run out of answers. Well, God's got an answer for him. Yeah. There's that hope that God will look after him.
Mm. I know that you said you're being generous on Elijah, but I think that's good actually 'cause I think a lot of people are quite critical of this piece, and they're like, "Oh, look, this man of God has lost his ways," and he's gone- Yep
he's gone nuts- Yep ... he's gone bonkers. But it's, what I love about this story and what I love about all the characters in the Old Testament, is that you have people who are both villains and heroes. They're both positive and negative characters. You see them, do horrific things in one moment and do amazing things for God, and vice versa.
And that's true of Elijah, that's true of David, that's true of Moses, that's true of so many of these characters. And I, what I think is cool about Elijah's story is that it can happen to any of us. We've all experienced moments, um, that are maybe admirable, and then the next minute something has happened to us or we've made a- Mm
one wrong decision, and then we're in we're in the gutter, and we are completely disillusioned. We can't figure out life. It just shocks us almost. And I think looking at Elijah's story and, looking at people in life around us who maybe we admired, who are, you know, people of God, who are then going through that ebb and flow, it's so important for us to have grace on them in that moment, and- Mm
to literally be like, "This could happen to me tomorrow." , This- Yep ... happens all the time to us as humans. And so- It,
it does happen to all of us, and I think I'm not, I'm not being soft on Elijah, but I think we've done him a disservice in reading this as a failing.
Mm.
I think people are too- 'Cause he doesn't walk away.
He doesn't walk away. He sticks at it through it. He's at a low point, there's no question about that. He's struggling. But that doesn't mean he fails his mission. Mm. And I think we need to remember that, 'cause so often we frame it in such a way that this is his failing, this is his weak point, this is his crisis of faith, his doubt of God.
I don't think he doubts God. I think he knows God, he just doesn't see how he fits into the picture anymore. And I think that is hard. That is hard on all of us, especially if we feel we've had a calling, if we want God to use us in our lives. What happens if the seasons of life change or God wants us somewhere else, and we're not sure what that looks like yet?
Well, that's discouraging. That's hard for all of us. But God, has compassion on Elijah. Mm. Great compassion. And so I don't think we can read this story as Elijah's failure. I think this is just- A man who has tried his best to fulfill God's mission, doesn't know what's coming next, doesn't know if he's made an impact, doesn't know if he's actually doing what it is that he set out to do, that God, ordained him to do, and then is looking around going, "I don't know where I fit anymore."
And God, in God's answer, in God's use of Elijah, you know, as you said, there's so many people that have moral failings in the Bible. This is not a moral failing. This is not a intentional willful sin, you might call it. This is not Elijah turning his back on the mission or going apostate or, you know.
There's a lot of people that do worse stuff than Elijah has done here.
He doubted, yes. He struggled, yes. But God, I think, had compassion on him, and we should have compassion on him, and by extension, ourselves. 'Cause I think when we read this as a mental health episode and a failure, we put those things together and then we are harsh on ourselves and others that go through some of those things.
Mm. You can still be a faithful servant of God and have mental health struggles. That is, I'm convicted of that. So many people get so discouraged and perhaps might even leave their faith if the faith treats mental health as something that is a sin.
Yeah.
I think that's a, a mischaracterization of what mental health is. And it encourages me that Elijah goes through this episode, as so many of the Old Testament stories encourage me because it's like, hey, they're just humans. And so how do I see- Mm ... my story in this? How do I see their story as feeding into, well, Elijah was still faithful even at his lowest. He was seeking out for God, and God showed up.
Yeah.
That is encouraging to me.
For sure. I feel like in both Elijah's story and your story, there's this point where you're both exhausted, overwhelmed, and feel quite isolated in what's happening. Yet, like you said, you still believe in God. You never turned away from God or anything.
In your experience, what did you find encouraging? and How did you continue on with that steadfast faith in those moments when you weren't hearing from God, you weren't getting direction from God? Were there certain things that you kind of held onto or helped you?
Oh, for sure.
We've talked about this a few times, Zanita, but remembering where God has helped me in the past is definitely one of those things that keeps me going when I'm hitting these low points in my life. Knowing the miracles that God has done, knowing the call that God has given me, it's like, well, if this season is rough, God will pull me out of it because essentially, or in essence, God put me in it.
Not in the sense of blaming God for the difficulties, but God has guided me to this point, and I know if it's hard, if it's rough, it's just season that's preparing me for something else. It's just life, and it will get better because I trust that God will make it better.
Now, that's not to say that during that whole time it's easy to trust and obey and trust and believe and have faith and keep that strong sense. You have doubts, you have questions about God at those times. Am I really where God wants me to be? Is God real? At the very essence of that question, there's a doubt that, yes, we have 100% faith that God is real, but what if he's not?
What if this is all, you know, just a cosmic joke? But the things that bring me back every time is, one, the experiences of God coming through for me and for my family in my life. That is so hard to argue against, to go, "Well, God's done all these things for me in the past. How can I leave him now?" Um, and that, and maybe just grit and determination. You just gotta grit your teeth sometimes and stick it out.
Ride the wave.
I'm very ... Yeah, I'm a loyal sort of person. I don't sort of switch and change like the sea. I just, sometimes- Yeah ... you just gotta grit your teeth and stick it out.
Mm-hmm. You ended your article on some lyrics from a song called Remember the Miracles by Brandon Lake.
Mm.
And I really like it. It says, "When the doubt creeps in and my faith grows thin, and I'm questioning, I'll remember the miracles. When the lights go out, I feel more lost than found, stuck on shaky ground, I'll remember the miracles."
Mm-hmm ... so
think that remembering aspect is super important.
And those guys that wrote that song articulate it so much more poetically than I just have.
But that's the reason I put that in there, because even songs, at a time where things are difficult, you just hear a lyric or you hear someone worshiping God, and you're just like, especially songs like this that acknowledge, yeah, there's shaky ground. My faith is growing thin, like where am I at?
Well, I just gotta remember God loves me and cling to that promise, you know? Um- He will never leave me or forsake me. Do not be afraid. Be strong and courageous. You gotta cling to promises like that when life gets rough. And those songwriters articulated it just profoundly for me.
That song really spoke to me. There's a number of songs that speak to me, have spoken to me in my life in seasons of burnout or difficulty or doubt. You hear that song and it's just like, oh, but how can I leave God with all that He's done for me, even though He seems quiet, He seems dark, you know?
The, the prayers are bouncing off the ceiling all the time. And yet I will remain because I know what He's done for me.
Mm. Yeah, music is such a gift. It can be so encouraging on our journeys.
Mm. Yes.
I wanna touch on one thing in the story before we wrap up, because I- Mm-hmm ... think this gets glossed over a lot when we read over the story of Elijah, and that's when he goes to the mountain and God says, "What are you doing here?"
And then Elijah goes on this little rant, and you mention in your article, I think it was around the Mount Carmel story- Mm-hmm ... that he says, "I'm the only one of the Lord's prophets left," which at the time we kind of just read and we believe and we move on. But then when we get down to this paragraph, he says some more things, and he says that again, but this time we're kinda like, "Well, that's not really true."
And then he says some other things, like "Everyone is out to kill me." And it's like, well, Jezebel is, but not really everyone. that's a bit of a- Mm.
Mm ...
exaggeration. And there's a couple of things that he says that it's like, oh, well, that's not true. And he's not lying, but he's also not correct. It's almost like he's just got this, distorted mode of thinking and he's stuck on those things, and believes them wholeheartedly, and is kind of- Yes ... complaining to God. And I think that is a very, very very common thing that we do, especially probably in moments where stuff is going on in our own lives, where we're overwhelmed, we're really busy.
We just kind of start to hyper-focus on our lives, and we see everything- Mm-hmm ... through these certain lenses. And I think because of our past experiences, because of hurts, we kind of see things through a certain lens. Um, and it sounds like you can also relate to that from your piece.
you said, that you found yourself feeling resentful and comparative to others. So how do you pull yourself out of, or pick up on when you are perhaps having these distorted thoughts? Is there any way that we can kind of correct ourselves, when we find ourselves in that pattern?
It's a really good question. I wanna, go back to what I said before about unmet expectations. I think that plays in. I think Elijah had certain expectations, and when he says, "I'm the only one left," It's similar to what our expectations do. It's painting yourself a picture of the universe that is, as you said, it's true to him.
He believes it. I don't think he doesn't believe it. He believes it, and that's his perception, and that's how he understands it. And you can be right, you can be true, but it's unhelpful. That's what I've learned in my life. So some of the resentment and some of the comparisons I was making, that was maybe true.
I had a good point. Mm. How do I get out of it? Well, the only thing that got me out of it was actually God, if I'm completely honest. Some of the resentment that I was carrying, some of the difficulty I was having processing things, God showed me that I needed to forgive. And sometimes it's forgiving yourself, sometimes it's forgiving other people.
And then to reframe. Reframe the situation, to love the person, to forgive the person. And that happened early one morning. I was traveling. Often I get these revelations when I'm out of my normal routine, I suppose. I was traveling. I woke up super early. I was praying, praying, praying 'cause I was just feeling like, "How do I get past this wall, this roadblock in my life?"
And God answered me. And I journaled about it. So I do a practice sometimes when I can called Morning Pages, just write, type out a page in my laptop. The idea is just to write and not to be too stressed, because no one's ever gonna read it. You know? It's not to edit it or wrestle with how you write it, but just get it out. Just feel what's happening. Mm. And often those turn into prayers for me. This was a prayer session. I was totally up. It was 4:30 in the morning. I was in a different time zone. I wasn't sleeping well, and God woke me up, and we had a chat about it. I say had a chat, but, like- ... that's how it feels in the moment.
Mm. Because you're like, you're praying these prayers and then God comes with something like, "Hey, those people that you're resenting, the things that you're comparing yourself to, that's not what I've called you to do. You're doing something different. Like, you need to reframe that situation." As I prayed about it, I was like, repentance and confession then come.
"Sorry, Lord, I've actually been doing the wrong thing. I need to switch my thinking, adjust what I'm wrestling with, and reframe that whole situation." And I came out of that prayer So light. I re- I th- I dropped to my knees on the hotel floor and just said to God, "Thank you so much for sticking with me," Mm-hmm.
"Not abandoning me, and helping me to see that I've got issues in this area." Yes, other people had done the wrong thing, but I was responsible for my own actions. And I learnt marriage was probably the best teacher for this of me. I can't change other people. Yeah. I have to change myself if I want a different result. You know, the system is- Yeah ... closed, and if you want a different result, change yourself. And-
Mm ...
actually changing my attitude, letting go of the resentment, forgiving myself and others, and whatever that process had to look like to reframe things for me, it actually changed things significantly, not only for me, but for the whole situation. It changed the culture of what I was dealing with and it helped the burnout. The burnout thing was helped by other things as well, the equipping and the whatever. But once you change this, this circular negative pattern of thinking that you're in- Mm ... it can actually help you to get out of that space and that place.
Mm. And I think that's sort of what God did for Elijah. He was a circuit breaker. Yeah. He says to him, " No, you're not the only one. By the way-" Yeah. "... here's some facts." Yeah. "You are one of 7,000 that I have reserved in Israel whose knees have not bowed to Baal."
You're not alone. re- Reframe your thinking. Mm. Change your thinking.
So I guess inviting God into that space, he can help reveal things.
Your stinkin' thinking, I've heard one speaker call it.
there's a psychiatrist called Dr. Amen, from America. I've heard him also say something which could have been helpful for Elijah. And it's very simple. It's literally when you find yourself having these heated responses, 'cause often they are heated just literally asking yourself, "Is that really, really 100% true?" So for Elijah's example, he's like, "Everyone is out to kill me."
Is that really true, Elijah? Is really everyone out to get you? No. And so I think, yeah, little things like that can help too.
And you need humility to do that, Zanita, because we often- Mm ... think we're the center of the universe, and if we can realize for a second we're not, we're not the most important person in the room or the world and God is, and, every situation that we approach, we might be somewhat wrong. We might have a lot of right things, but we might also be that bit wrong. Yeah. We need that humility to be able to reframe that thinking 'cause-
100% ...
we're not God- Yeah ... and so we're not correct all the time.
Yeah. We can get in our own heads a lot. Um, I'd love to keep talking about Elijah and it's great to talk about these Old Testament characters, but I also would love to know what you have learnt about God through reading about Elijah's story.
Hmm
And also, if you want to tie it in, how that kind of reflects with the idea of living in covenant with God.
Yeah. I think God doesn't answer our questions in a linear sort of way. He often answers with a response that we're not expecting, and Elijah's situation is that. But He often asks a question first, and that's super important.
We need these God questions. He asks a question, Jesus does, of, like, the woman at the well. He asks her a bunch of questions, you know. In Elijah's, "What are you doing here, Elijah? What are you doing here, Elijah?" He, He knows. To some extent you would assume that He knows, but He needs Elijah to articulate it.
Adam and Eve in the Garden, "Why are you hiding? Where are you?" You know, God asks questions, so He is not forcing Himself on us. He wants to understand where we're at. And when we let Him in, if we let Him in, He doesn't then answer us in a linear way. He doesn't say, "Okay, you're the last one. Well, what do you think we should do, Elijah?
Well, I think, um, I, God, am going to, yeah, get rid of the kings, set you up and all the people will worship. I'll change their hearts," you know? It's not that. It's, "I've got a task for you. These things you need to do. I'm gonna send you to mentor to pass the mantle on to Elisha. You know, this is what you can do." And so He redirects it, doesn't come with the expected answer. And then all of those things, He honors Elijah's prayer in a sense, but in a completely unexpected way. So he does take his life. He takes him to heaven in a fiery chariot. He does finish his mission. He takes him to be with him in the end.
So for us, God doesn't always answer in an expected way, but he always answers in a way that's better than we expect. In my experience, I've experienced that.
Tying it into the Living Covenant series, the idea is that in all the Old Testament we find these characters who are wrestling with working out what it means to live in covenant with God. God makes a covenant with his people, Israel, and so all of those characters that we cover are often made promises by God directly, or if they're not, they're still within that covenant relationship that Israel has established with God, and God, I should say, has established with Israel, like God does the heavy lifting of that covenant, that agreement. And for us, we know we're under the cross, not under the covenant, as in we're not under the law, we're under grace, but God's promises to his people are still relevant to our lives today and give us hope. So when we're burnt out, when we're depressed, when we're struggling and suffering like Elijah, we know that God will show up in our difficult times. We know that God eventually honors Elijah's faithfulness. And in the same way, if we can stick at it, God will honor us in a sense.
Um, So for me, it's very, encouraging to read Elijah's story and go, Elijah wasn't perfect, Elijah had his moments, but God always had Elijah's back, and by extension, God can have my back. Elijah's not perfect. I'm certainly not perfect.
Mm.
But God can have my back just like he had Elijah's back, and that's encouraging.
Mm. Absolutely. And if you need to take a break and have some water and have some food and have a nap, God's still got your back. Go
for it. Yep. He encourages it.
Yep. Awesome. Well, we will end it there, but thank you Jarrod for your story. For anyone who wants to read it, you can find the full thing the Living Covenant book. Thank you again, Jarrod. It has been great to have you on and yeah, thank you for sharing your insights.
Thanks, Zanita. Thanks for having me.