Imagine sitting around a table with the biblical prophets Elijah and Habakkuk, along with Ida B. Wells, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What would you ask them? One of my questions would be, “How do you handle discouragement?” I don’t know exactly what they would have said, but I believe that some version of a “prayer closet” would be mentioned in every response.
Elijah is running for his life. Exhausted, he ends up scrunched down under a broom tree in the wilderness, desperate to disappear. In his torment, he manages to consume the food and drink offered, and makes his way to the mountain of God. He ends up in a cave, but it’s still in the mountain of God, a place where he repeatedly reminds God of his faithfulness to his prophetic call. In essence, he is saying to God, “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this…”
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “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.”
1 Kings 19:7-10
Habakkuk is clear that he has a complaint. He sees the violence around him. He doesn’t get to view the mayhem from a distant place but is up close as he bears witness to the idolatry and injustice surrounding him and cries out to God, “Why are you doing nothing about this?” Yet, the prophet’s plan is to go to his post and wait for God’s answer.
“I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.” Habakkuk 2:1
Ida B. Wells rides a train from Memphis for a teaching assignment. The conductor insists that she move from the “ladies car” to the “smoking car.” True to form, she refuses to move and the conductor resorts to forcibly removing her. Upon returning to Memphis, she files a lawsuit against the railroad and wins the case. Unfortunately, the decision is reversed by the state’s Supreme Court. An entry in her diary, dated April 11, 1887, expresses her disappointment.
“O God, is there no redress, no peace, no justice in this land for us? Thou hast always fought the battles of the weak & oppressed. Come to my aid at this moment & teach me what to do, for I am sorely, bitterly disappointed. Show us the way, even as Thou led the children of Israel out of bondage into the promised land.” From The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells, edited by Miriam Decosta-Willis
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. receives yet another menacing phone call at his home. The caller spews racist hatred and threatens to hurt his family. He becomes so overwhelmed that he can’t sleep, so he gets up, goes to the kitchen and makes some coffee. Then he prays:
“Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right; I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now; I’m faltering; I’m losing my courage. And I can’t let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak.” Martin Luther King Jr from his sermon, “Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool”, August 27, 1967
Sometimes, we must steal away to a secret place. At that place, we encounter the divine presence and power we need for resurrection of courage and commitment.
Elijah hid in the mountain. God told him about the 7000 reinforcements he knew not of, and sent him to his next assignment
Habakkuk waited at his watchpost. God told him to write the vision of justice that would come and wait for it.
Ida. B. Wells wrote in her diary. God must have answered since she went on to expose the wickedness of lynching in America
Dr. King sat at his coffee table. God told him: “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.”
How do we press on in the midst of our frustrations and fears? In the same sermon I referred to earlier, Dr. King stated that our enslaved ancestors took another prophet’s “question mark and straightened it into an exclamation point.” How? They clung to the courage that oppressive forces tried to snatch. How? They continued to remind themselves of one ultimate truth passed down from generation to generation:
God is with us.
Your Call: Do you have a special place of prayer where you meet God in times of turmoil? Where is your watchpost?
