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Elijah's Encounter with the Eternal God "And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.But he himself 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." (1 Kings 19:1-4)In the 19th chapter of 1st Kings, we read a fascinating narrative of the prophet Elijah's journey from the Depths of Despair to Divine Deliverance.All of us know about Elijah. Down through the ages, He has been called the prophet of power. His name is synonymous with strength. But in these verses, this iron man of the Old Testament was filled with fear and discouragement, so much so that he wanted to die.Elijah had 3 revealing symptoms. He was suffering from exhaustion, due to a lack of proper rest; introspection, from looking too closely at himself; and an exaggeration of his problems, which introspection naturally leads to.Centuries later the apostle Paul wrote of his own encounter with despair in his 2nd letter to the folks there at Corinth: "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;" (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)Why did these 2 great men of God find themselves in the depths of despair? Perhaps they hadn’t seen the results they expected or wanted to see, or maybe they never thought times would get as hard as they did.We can fall into the same state of mind if our expectations get too far above our practical experience. There are many like Paul and Elijah, who have been discouraged in their service for God and often for the same reasons: exhaustion, introspection of faults, and an exaggeration of problems.We find God’s solution in Psalm 46. The entire Psalm speaks of disturbing times: pounding seas, crumbling mountains, and violent kingdoms. However, at the close of the Psalm, we hear God’s answer, "Be still, and know that I am God: (vr.10) He tells us that in the worst of times, we must stop hurrying and worrying and be quiet and silent before Him.Friends, we too will find Divine Deliverance from the Depths of Despair when we lay everything down at the foot of the cross. For it was Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, who graciously took our sins and made them His sins and in turn He gave us deliverance from sin's penalty and clothes us with His own blessing of strength and peace. Well, all I can come up with right now concerning that truth is, PRAISE GOD AND AMEN!