Living above the snake line

Next to Moses, Elijah was probably the most impressive man in the Old Testament and yet he suffered with depression.

Elijah had the ability to perform tremendous miracles: Heal the sick, raise the dead, call fire down from heaven, stop the rain from falling for three years and then make it start up again, etc. Malachi talks about how before Jesus Christ’s return to set up His kingdom, Elijah will reappear on the stage of events in the "last days." In Revelation 11, he is seen again performing miracles.

“One of the best stories in Scripture takes place in I Kings 18 when Elijah (single-handedly) did battle with 450 prophets of Baal,” relays the book, 1001 Surprising Things you Should Know About the Bible. “Placing a bull on an altar on top of Mount Carmel, he challenged the prophets to make fire come down and consume the sacrifice. When they failed, he taunted them, suggesting that their god must be asleep or away on a trip.

"Elijah then had water poured on the bull, stepping forward and saying a short prayer: ‘Let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant.’ Fire suddenly came down from heaven and burned up the sacrifice—leading the crowd watching to prostrate themselves before God, then turn and slaughter the false priests.”

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“Elijah’s a key figure in Israel’s history,” says Preacher Richard Jordan. “He established the school of the prophets. His ministry forestalled apostasy in Israel for decades and generations.”

“Nevertheless, I Kings 19:4 reports that Elijah ‘went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.’

“He goes right down into the pit. He’s not just going to quit, but he says, ‘C’mon, Lord, just kill me.’ Everything’s reversed itself suddenly and now Elijah is running for his life out in the wilderness, sitting under the juniper tree all in a punk; in the throes of despair.

“And you have to appreciate he’s going from the mountaintop of Carmel in chapter 18— where he wins a great victory in his ministry and life—to the slew of despond under a tree in the desert in chapter 19, asking God to kill him.

“It was an overnight event. It didn’t take a long process to get there. Sometimes depression comes on you that way. Sometimes it comes on quickly. Sometimes you move from the joy and excitement of victory right into the agonies, defeats and dark doldrums.

“In I Kings 19:10, Elijah explains of himself, ‘I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.’

“Now, if you can’t see the series of bad-thinking in that you’re not listening. Elijah’s whole problem is he’s got unrealistic thinking and expectations; some misplaced dependencies.

“He says, ‘Look at what I’ve been doing.’ He’s talking about his own activities. Where’s his dependency been? ‘Israel’s failed, but I alone. . .’ You know, in reality there were 7,000 other people who were faithful too. Elijah thought he was all by himself and yet there were 7,000 men in Israel who hadn’t bowed their knee to Baal. But all Elijah sees is himself. He misplaced his dependencies onto what he was doing and then got expectations.

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“Self-pity blinds his eyes to the resources he has, maximizing the difficulties against him. And that’s always what happens. In your life, when you begin to focus on yourself, it’s the self-pity that’s present in every depression. I don’t care what it is, where it came from, how it’s induced; it always has an element of self-pity in it. That’s the part of the formula you have to attack.

“Self-pity involves two forms of thinking. One is past thinking, where you remember; you rehearse the injury, the rejection, and you just go over it and over it in your mind.

“The other is future thinking where you project the insult or injury into the future and you begin to have anxiety and foreboding, worry and fear about it happening again; about it coming into your life in the future. And those things will eat your lunch. You won’t live above the snake line with thinking like that. That will put you in an absolute tailspin of despondency and despair.”