Forming Faith Blog

Reflections on a Fearful Prophet (1 Kings 19)

Posted on October 21 2025 by Gregory Rawn

While fleeing for his life, Elijah experienced fear and despair, but he was also gifted with sustenance, movement, God’s presence, and a call to serve. How do we experience these things, too?

A fearful person huddled against a cement wall.
Photo by Pixabay
Since Last Time: A Kingdom Divided

Last week, we saw King Solomon at the height of his power—and his faithfulness to God. Some time after he presided over the building of the temple, he turned from God toward his collection of women, and specifically, their religions. As a result, God told him that the kingdom would be torn out of his grasp, with only one of the twelve tribes still following him. However, it would not be during his lifetime, said God, to honor the faithfulness of his father David.

After Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam ascended to the throne. In his pride and foolishness, Rehoboam rejected a request from the northern tribes of Israel when they asked for mercy from the forced labor of his father. In youthful arrogance, he responded with cruelty instead of mercy, and the northern tribes left, choosing Jeroboam to be their new king. Thus, the united kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon was split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.

Since Last Time: Ahab and Elijah

Jeroboam started things poorly for the northern kingdom when he set up two golden calves for the Israelites to worship (hmmm… sounds familiar) to prevent his people from worshipping in Jerusalem and to safeguard his power. This led to a broken line of kings who rejected God, leading to Ahab, the eighth king and worst of the worst (1 Kings 16:29-30).

It was into this situation that Elijah the prophet arrived. He represented God’s opposition to King Ahab, Queen Jezebel, and the cult of Ba’al that they brought to Israel. First, there was a three-year drought Elijah declared (presumably as punishment for Ahab’s idolatry, but that’s not actually explicit in the text). This was finished with a competition between the prophet of YHWH (Elijah) and the priests of Ba’al. YHWH won, and Elijah ordered the execution of the 450 priests of Ba’al (and likely the 400 prophets of Asherah). That’s where today’s story begins.

Questions

As I reflected on this passage, I decided to divide it into six sections based on Elijah’s experiences: fear, despair, sustenance, movement, presence, and call. I end each section with a couple of questions for you to meditate on, both for yourself and for your work with your faith formation participants (students/learners, small group members, worshippers, etc.). If you wish to relate your teaching/preaching/etc. to All Saints’ Sunday, you can add a question to each section about an example of a saint (famous or personal) who experienced those emotions or situations.

Fear

The priests and prophets were important to Queen Jezebel, so she was less than pleased when she heard of their executions. So, she threatened to kill Elijah. He reacted as most people would:

Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life.

1 Kings 19:3

Everyone, from infants to elders, knows about fear. Some may be more prone to fear than others, and some are placed in more dangerous situations than others. But we all know fear. Some fears are imaginary (or at least overblown), like my severe acrophobia. Others are very, very real, as many immigrants are experiencing right now in the United States (you can read my reflections on our treatment of immigrants in a series I wrote this past summer).

Questions: 

  • What is sparking fear in your heart right now? 
  • What might be sparking fear in your faith formation participants right now?
Despair

Elijah was in a horrible situation. He was scared and felt very alone. Jezebel had killed an unknown number of prophets of YHWH (a faithful YHWH worshipper, Obadiah, is reported to have hidden 100 prophets, so the total number killed had to be more than that (1 Kings 18:4), though Elijah stated that he was the only prophet left). You can hear his hopelessness: 

He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”

1 Kings 19:4b

If we can imagine safety—a realistic resolution of our fear—in the future, we can latch onto that and cling to hope. With hope, fear can be conquered, even if the battle is slow and hard-fought. But sometimes we cannot imagine the resolution of our fear, or we might believe that it is impossible to reach. Then we have no hope. A lack of hope in a time of fear leads to despair. Even if we don’t literally want to die, something inside of us withers. This is even true if the fear and hopelessness are only in one part of your life. If fear is in one aspect of your life and hope is in a different aspect, you can still be susceptible to despair.

Questions:

  • What hope can you cling to in the face of your fear?
  • What hope can you offer to your participants?
Sustenance

God was not finished with Elijah. The prophet might have felt hopeless, but God provided for him (yet again, see 1 Kings 17:6 and 14-16), this time through an angel. In his despair, Elijah slept, as is not uncommon in times of depression. But God sent a messenger to wake Elijah with a touch and provide him with bread and water. Even after that, the prophet went back to sleep until the angel returned with more food and water.

I don’t know how much of Elijah’s sleeping was self-care and recovery from a very stressful situation, and how much of it was from the exhaustion of depression. I would guess that it was some of both.

Questions:

  • How have you been prioritizing self-care in your life?
  • How can you help your participants do so?
  • Who has been a messenger to you, providing something that you needed?
  • How can you encourage your participants to recognize the messengers in their lives, and even be such messengers of God for others?
Movement

The angel did not just come to provide for Elijah’s needs. They also came to send him on a journey, strengthened by those provisions, to Mount Horeb (Mount Sinai), perhaps 250 miles away over the course of 40 days. Even after traveling through the mountainous Negev and Sinai deserts, surviving through 40 days and nights, Elijah only seems slightly better emotionally. Once he gets to Horeb, he is questioned by God, and his answer still has a note of despair, though his suicidality seems to have gone away.

“I alone [of the prophets of God] am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

1 Kings 19:10b

While we won’t have to hike 250 miles over dry, mountainous terrain, we still must move forward. Like Elijah, we must keep putting one foot in front of the other, as the old saying goes. Sometimes our steps might feel uphill, and sometimes they are. But we can, and must, keep moving forward.

Question:

  • How can you move forward towards your hoped-for future, even if it’s just one struggling step at a time?
  • How can you help your participants do the same?
Presence

After a long, long time of arduous movement forward, Elijah arrives at the mount of God. God promises to pass by and does, but not in the drama of wind, earthquake, or fire. God shows up as the sound of sheer silence (NRSVUE), a still, small voice (NKJV), or a gentle whisper (NIV). God was, of course, present in the wind, earthquake, and fire (all signs of God’s presence elsewhere in Scripture), but it is in the quiet that God speaks.

In this story, it is God who creates the silence for Elijah. But Elijah still had to wait—to prepare for God’s presence. We also need to take time to listen for God’s voice. I know that, even though I’m a fairly quiet person, I’m not great at silence, at keeping still as Psalm 46 says. But in these times of fear and at times despair, perhaps this is something I should practice.

Questions:

  • What can you do to prepare yourself to listen for God’s voice, to notice God’s presence?
  • Are there faith practices that you can teach your participants, and even practice with them, to help them listen for God’s voice?
Call

Our passage ends with God calling and commissioning Elijah for more work. God is not finished with him yet. And God is not finished with us, either. I don’t like the terminology of God “using” us or us being “tools.” We are not inanimate objects to be moved around. I much prefer talking about God working through us and working with us. We are bearers of God’s image, temples for the Holy Spirit, and sharers of God’s transforming love in the world. And we have work to do.

Questions:

  • What work are you called to do, especially in the area of your fear?
  • What work can you do together with your participants?

In God’s presence,

Gregory Rawn (Publisher)

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