Fire on the mountain, and depression on the prophet

It is Wednesday morning as I write this. When I opened the back door of our parsonage, looking out on the steps that lead to the back yard, it was as foggy as any mountainside I can remember. Thick, like I enjoy my bacon being cut, with little wispy-ness about it. It was the kind of fog that you absolutely do not want to run into on a long trip home from just about anywhere on the planet.

It was the type of fog they refer to as a "fog-bank." We're talking movie cliche fog, where you walk in and just flat out disappear like, well, fog folk. Sounds like a horror movie to me. "The Attack of the Fog Folk."

Just ripping things from the headlines, I came across a man named Jeff Lucas, an author, pastor, international speaker. He's produced a new book called, well, you will finally see the tie-in ... "Faith in the Fog."

Lucas says, "Faith in the Fog is about depression, doubt, and burnout. I want to be very real about my own journey, but also give people who struggle with those things a vocabulary for their own. So often Christians feel bad about feeling bad, and are made to feel like they are second rate if they struggle, but the Bible is loaded with major heavy-weights -- Elijah, Paul, and I believe Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane -- who battled depression and sadness, and those things are a part of life. We're not promised that we'll be endlessly ecstatic, but the book is about helping people to count themselves in when their emotions make them want to count themselves out."

One of my favorite looks at some of the things that mystify me but also give me hope is the prophet Elijah's strange bout with depression. It comes just after he had defeated a whole herd of false prophets, folks who were worshippers of Baal. He rolled them up like a ball of yarn. You couldn't win more convincingly than did Elijah. This was LSU versus Southeastern in football. This was Alabama versus Alabama State in football. This was Mississippi State versus, well, never mind.

He had made a bit of a wager with them, saying basically that the one or ones who could bring down fire from heaven (or Baal's equivalent) would be the winner. It was him and his God versus 450 screaming Baal mummies.

To make it even more of a reality-series production, Elijah did his best Dancing with the Stars moment, strutted around a tango or two, with the type of swagger that would cut through T-bone thick fog with a dull sword. When the false prophets came up fire-less despite calling on Baal with all the gusto they could muster, Elijah even told them all 450 or so could pour buckets of water on his wood before he would give the ol' calling down fire from heaven thing.

They wet the wood. They stood back, hoping against hope. Still, woosh and fire went up like an old frame wooden tenement in Los Angeles would go up today -- in a second or two.

So, Elijah had enough reason to brag, to dance, to shout and sing a line or two. No one should find a moment, just the tinge of a moment of depression or doubt or burnout after such a, well, burn out.

But it happened.

Queen Jezebel heard the Elijah story and sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of (the dead prophets)."

Well, now. The swagger-king, the ego-filled dancing prophet of the living God who was filled with power beyond belief who could call down fire without much of an effort, this man Elijah immediately took care of Jezebel. Right? I mean one woman could not possibly be a problem after taking out 450 prophets, right?

Here's the thing. Depression, doubt, burnout and such don't follow our timetable or our planning. The Bible says, "Elijah was afraid and ran for his life." Eventually he would sit down under a "broom bush" and pay that he might die.

He gave up.
He became suicidal.
He quit trying.
Swagger gone. Pride done away with.

All because one woman, be it a powerful one, said she was going to do him in.

The notion that Christians are happy, happy, happy all the time is a nice one, but it is also a false one. I wish that were the case, but it simply isn't. I've known persons, very powerful persons,m who simply weren't happy.

Some of us fight these moments with great effort.

How?

Lucas said, "be honest and keep asking questions. Questions are not discouraged for the Christian, in fact they're encouraged. Use doubt as a pathway to something more substantial in terms of faith; cut through the slogans and the cliches, but doubt with God.

"In the Psalms, for example, you see the psalmist yelling, shouting, and struggling, but bringing those doubts to God. Prayer is not just about making a speech of faith; often it's about screaming blue murder about struggles and fears. In that sense, don't allow doubt to distance you from God, but instead make it a part of your relationship with him," Lucas said.

And the conclusion of the Elijah story (or at least this portion of it)?

The Lord comes to him and asks him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" In other words, why in the world are you sitting here trying to dry up and die you moron. (That's the Billy translation of God's words.)

Elijah says, "I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. the Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

The Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a GENTLE WHISPER (my emphasis). When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave."

Elijah was looking for God's love in all the wrong places, suffering a depression that need not have been, and God finally touched him gently, wonderfully, lovingly -- bringing him back from the fear that had gripped him.

As they say where I'm from: "What's got aholt of you?" (They make the words up as they go.)

What fear has you? What depression has you? What pain, what suffering, what doubt, what burnout? And what are you doing about it?

I would suggest the simplest of remedies. Listen for a gentle whisper.

I'm not saying that all clinical depression will be solved by listening to the creator. I am saying that listening to Him has a medicinal affect on all sorts of problems, and loneliness, depression, suffering is certainly among those things that love can conquer.

I'm far from foggy on that idea.