Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Well, I want to address the subject today, and of course, we’re going to look at the life of Elijah again, about praying when you want to give up. But you know, so many times, things happen and you just get worn down and it looks as though things aren’t working out, and we just quit. And so we’re going to look at a very low point in Elijah’s life, in 1 Kings, chapter 19. And I want to talk about running out of prayers. What happens when you run out of prayers?

Now, I don’t know if any of you have ever run out of prayers. Perhaps you got disappointed with God, and you’ve prayed so hard and the prayer wasn’t answered, or perhaps it wasn’t answered as you’d told him to answer it. Or maybe you just ran out of energy, just spiritual energy. It takes spiritual energy, it takes strength, remember, to do this work of prayer. And prayer is work, holy work.

Or maybe you lost faith in the goodwill of God, and you began to believe the devil’s whispers instead of the whispers of God: that God was the vindictive God, withholding answers in order to punish you. Or perhaps you lost your own God-confidence, and you stopped coming boldly before the throne of God, asking big things. You know, we are coming to a king; large petitions with you bring. We ask such little tiny things just to make sure God’ll answer them, because if it’s that tiny, then maybe he’ll come through. But we are coming to a king; large petitions with you bring.

Queen Elizabeth of England had a man who was busy gaining countries for her, Sir Walter Raleigh. And he would come and ask her for the Americas. He would ask her, "Can I go? Can I take the ships? Can we go to the Caribbean?" He would ask her, as the British Empire was built, he would go and ask his queen if he could go off and do these exploits for her. And she would say, "Well, what’s it going to cost? It’s going to be so many ships, and so many men, and so many this, and so many that." And she’d think about it, and then she was always persuaded. She couldn’t say no to this man.

And one day she said to him, "Raleigh, when are you going to stop asking me for things?" And he said, "When your majesty stops giving. When your majesty stops giving." And you know, when are we going to stop asking him? When he stops giving. And it’s just that question; we’re coming to a king, we’re coming to someone with the power to say, "Yes, I have the resources it’s going to take for what you’re coming to ask me for."

Well, Elijah ran out. And we can read the story in 1 Kings, chapter 19. "Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, namely, killing all her prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, 'May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I don’t make your life like one of them.' Elijah was afraid."

Three little words. And I’ve underlined them; they’ve gone right through to Revelation. It’s encouragement to me: he was afraid. Mighty Elijah, but then he was a man just like us, remember. And yet even though he was a man who had his points of failure, and this was the deepest failure of his life, the worst failure of his life, if Elijah hadn’t run away, maybe the children of Israel would never have gone into captivity.

He’d done it! Fire had fallen. The whole of Israel had turned back to God. "The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God," they’d cried out. He goes in front of Ahab’s chariot to the gates of Jezreel, where the whole country is repenting and turning back to God. Jezebel sends a messenger; he turns around and runs in the opposite direction. Elijah was afraid for his life.

And so he went, and he came to Beersheba and he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, he sat down under it, and he prayed that he might die. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t answer some of our prayers? I think he was glad that God didn’t answer that one, but it was a fervent prayer. "I want to die, I want to die!" Have you ever got to that point? "God, I want to die." And then a few days later, "Thank you, you didn’t answer that prayer, Lord."

"Take my life. I’m no better than my ancestors." He lay down under the tree, fell asleep, and this angel, the angel of the Lord—if you’ve got a King James Bible or a Catholic Bible, it has a capital A and a capital T, and it is the angel of the Lord. It is Jesus pre-Bethlehem, second person of the Trinity, theophany, self-revelation of God. He appears through the Old Testament; he didn’t begin at Bethlehem. He is incarnate at Bethlehem.

And here he is, ministering to his poor old prophet who is lying flat on his face under this broom tree. In fact, he’s doing more than minister; he’s cooking him breakfast. "Get up and eat." He looks around and there, by his head, is a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down, and the angel of the Lord came back a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat. The journey’s too much for you."

So he got up and ate and drank, then strengthened by that food, he traveled 40 days and nights till he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. And 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 said, "I’ve been very jealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken your altars, put your prophets to death with the sword. I’m the only one left, and they’re trying to kill me, too." And the Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."

There was a great and powerful wind that tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks, but the Lord wasn’t in the wind. And after the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard that, he pulled his cloak over his face and he went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

And a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I’ve been very jealous for the Lord God of Almighty." It sounds like a broken gramophone record at this point. "The Israelites have rejected your covenant, etc., etc. I’m the only one. Now they’re trying to kill me, too."

And the Lord said to him, "Go back the way you came. Go to the desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel, and anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat, from Abel-meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him."

So Elijah ran out of prayers. Just ran out of prayers. Here he is in defeat. Here he is having run away from a woman, when he didn’t run away from 450 of her prophets and the whole of Israel or Ahab. But he just ran out. Just ran out. Ran out of everything. You know, God is a lot more interested in how we’re doing than what we’re doing. Always remember that.

We’re so busy for God, and we’re so busy for our families, and we’re so busy trying to do everything; he really wants to know how you’re doing. "How are you?" he says. Not as we say it to each other. "How are you?" and we really don’t want to know, or we haven’t time to stop and listen if you answer. He wants to know, "How are you?" And I see the tender touch of God in his exhausted prophet as a very tender and very special and very gentle thing. God deals so gently with us when we are out, just out.

First of all, he was running out of faith. Now, notice it was after a great victory. And you need to watch after you’ve had an answer to prayer, after God has brought someone to Christ. Watch it! After you’ve done well in what you’re doing for the Lord. I’ve noticed specifically after a big production here that I’m usually involved in, one way or the other. And God has really blessed and people are coming and people have come to the Lord and everybody’s excited and they’ve got their family coming to church through this avenue and I always say to the cast when it’s finished, "Watch."

Yes, the fire fell on this ministry. But around the corner, there might be a broom tree, because there’s that down, there’s that opportunity the devil takes after a great victory. Elijah was afraid. And you know, that’s another thing fear will do it: you’ll run out of faith when you’re afraid. You can’t have faith and fear in the same sentence. He was full of faith on the mountain, but now he was full of fear in the desert.

He had a doubt-out or a whiteout. When we first came to Wisconsin, I remember the first blizzard we had; it was in November. And I had never seen anything like that in England. We just have rain in England; we hardly ever have snow. And here was this first Wisconsin blizzard. And I went out to find something, I think it was the dog or whatever, and I got lost about 12 feet away from my house! I couldn’t see it. It was real scary. You have this whiteout.

And often that happens in our faith realm. We have this doubt-out. We have this whiteout. I remember when Stuart and I were asked to go to Columbia, I had a whiteout. I had a doubt-out. I panicked because I was afraid. And it’s an incredible thing what happens to your faith. I couldn’t pray at that point. When you’re really afraid, it’s very hard; that’s when you need to ask somebody else to pray for you. "Pray for me. I am so panicked. I’m not going to do any praying at this point. I need you to pray for me. Pray for me that the peace of God will garrison, put soldiers around my spirit." And that’s a very healthy thing to do.

But doubt is like that. It’s "faith distress," somebody said. I like that: doubt is "faith distress." Hard to pray when you start to doubt God: doubt who he is, doubt if he’s able, doubt if he’s there. Because he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he’s a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. So if you’re having problem and you’re doubting, then you’re not going to do much praying.

God is sometimes a God who hideth himself, but never a God that absenteth himself; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance. And that has gone through and through and through my mind. God is sometimes a God who hideth himself, but never a God that absenteth himself; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance.

Somebody called me and said, "My husband’s just told me he ran out of love for me." And I said, "God is sometimes a God who hides himself, but never a God who absents himself; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance." Because the fog had come, the whiteout had come, the doubt-out had come. She said, "I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe." Panic. Panic.

And you know what an incredible thing it was to pray and to just hear, almost, the peace of God, giving access to the peace of God through prayer into that difficult situation. Because the darkness and the light are both alike to him, and God is there. Doubt-outs, whiteouts.

I had a letter—I get many, many letters. This one is a good illustration of this happening, just this fog, this mist, this whiteout that can happen to us, namely, doubt. "I’m so glad you came to Chattanooga again." I’d been down to Chattanooga, took a meeting. "I’m reminded of many things when I see and hear you." She did not introduce herself to me at this point.

"In the hot summer of 1980, we arrived in Brookfield, moved into our first real house with our nine-month little girl. I began to find out how hard it is to learn to be a pastor’s wife. We were there only a year and a half, but they were good years. And I remember when my husband, Klaus, went to coffee with you. He was struggling because he’d just been asked to resign his pastoral position and didn’t know where to go.

Well, you talked to him about missions. He went to your church where he got three mission board addresses. We contacted all three and we wound up in Zambia with Africa Evangelical Fellowship. I remember those incredible Bible studies at your church here. I realized right away how much I didn’t know about the Bible and I was amazed at the many women who came to study.

Presently, I teach two classes of high school chemistry, keep a five-year-old 24 hours a day, five days a week, 10 school functions for my four children, 11, 12, 14, 16, cook meals and do a little housework, but the house is always a mess. My husband died in an auto accident in November the 30th in Zambia. My back was broken in the accident. Four Zambians died, too.

That was a very hard time. This past September, I started realizing I had been in a fog for more than six years after our accident. In February '89, a nurse told me it takes two to five years to adjust to being a widow, two to five years to adjust to becoming disabled. I wondered at the time if it would take me four to ten years since I was adjusting to both at the same time.

It did take that long. I still have so much to learn and relearn about so many things. Nevertheless, I am starting to learn, and I want to learn how to live for God as a disabled widow. I have functioned all during this time, but I did all these things without a plan or a purpose, in a fog. God has been so good to us. I have found employment, different types of jobs I would never have tried for but they found me. I would like to have a regular full-time job so that we could have medical coverage, but that isn’t possible. It hasn’t happened, but God has helped us to stay fairly healthy. Thank you for being such an influence in my life."

I have no idea who she is. She didn’t tell me who she was. But you know something? I wrote her a little note. God is sometimes a God who hides himself, but never a God who absents himself; sometimes in the dark, but never at a distance. And she ran out of prayers for six and a half years. In a fog. No plan, no purpose. And yet now, and there’s more in the letter, she’s coming down the mountain like Elijah did, with a new spring in her step. Incredible life she faces of responsibility. No medical coverage. Disabled widow. Four kids. And she keeps a five-year-old. How many hours did she say? Day and night, by the look of it. God is giving her hope again.

So what he says to us is just, "Keep talking to me if you can." God says, "Just keep talking to me." Jesus never grew tired of inviting, prompting, exhorting, even commanding people to pray, especially his disciples, even doubting Thomas. And in Ole Hallesby’s book on prayer—and this is an excellent little book on prayer—"Many have had most remarkable answers to prayer when they had no clear or definite assurance that they would be heard, either before they prayed, while they were praying, or after they prayed. It has seemed to them God has given the most remarkable answers to prayer at times when they had no faith whatsoever."

And then he gives a couple of examples. And so the thing is to keep talking, to keep on, even if you feel, "This is ridiculous, this is stupid," just to keep talking to him in the fog. Just as Elijah did; he woke up and he said a couple of things and he collapsed again. But he kept talking.

Running out of faith. Then he ran out of steam. Running out of steam. It wasn’t only a whiteout; it was a burnout. "I’ve had enough, Lord!" Have you ever said that? "I’ve had it up to here! I’ve had it up to here with my family, with my church, maybe with my husband, maybe with my kids." What you’ve had it up to here with.

Well, Elijah was, as I often say, a "pooped prophet." He was tired of the work of the Lord as well as in the work of the Lord. I would have to tell you I live tired. And my husband certainly lives tired. In fact, he often says to me, "I was born tired, I’ve lived tired, I’ll die tired, but if I get to heaven and I’m still tired, I’m coming back!" Because his idea of going to heaven is having time to sleep in in the morning, I think. But just to wake up not jet-lagged. He lives in perpetual jet lag, and I think I do a little bit.

So you can be tired in the work of the Lord, but I can honestly tell you that’s very different from being tired of the work of the Lord. You just do it tired. Never enough people to do it. So you’re going to be tired till you get to heaven, get a new body that can’t be tired. Yay God!

He was exhausted. And you know why; you can look at his history and you can look at the story. Sustained pressure over a long time will do this; you’ll burn out. Maybe some of you have been living under sustained pressure, having an in-law or mother or a father who has a chronic disability. Sustained pressure over a long time; you might find yourself burned out. Maybe you’re not running out of faith, but maybe you’re running out of steam. Just running out of steam. And we need to pray for people like that.

In this book, Samuel Zwemer’s book, I read this: "James Gilmour of Mongolia said, 'I feel like a diver at the bottom of the stream with no air to breathe, or like a fireman on a blazing building with an empty hose.'" And at the top of the page, he had put a little heading: "Unprayed for." That’s been sticking in my mind, too.

This man felt unprayed for. Actually, as he explains, this man was unprayed for. He had no support, he had a church that didn’t want to send him out so they didn’t support him. God called him, he went, he was a pioneer missionary, opened up the interior of the land that he went to. God used him, but he had not one person praying for him.

And that’s what he wrote: "I feel like a diver at the bottom of the stream with no air to breathe, or like a fireman on a blazing building with an empty hose." And maybe what we need to say to God is, "Who do you want me to pray for that doesn’t have anyone else to pray for them?"

I often look at people when I’m sitting on airports, which I do a lot, and I ask myself, "Has anybody ever prayed for that person?" I love it; it’s fascinating just watching people walk by, or watching them sitting waiting for the plane with me. And I often say to God, "If you would just alert me to somebody that’s never been prayed for, I would love to pray for them right now, here and then. Maybe that’s the only time I will."

And as I look around, I catch a look on a face, or I watch somebody saying goodbye at the plane and crying, or welcoming somebody without too much enthusiasm, and God says, "They haven’t been prayed for. Pray for them." And I have great joy in standing and saying, "This is the first time, possibly, that this person’s ever been prayed for." Unprayed for.

Now, Ole Hallesby, in his little book on prayer, gives his own testimony to the conviction that he has wasted all his life praying for himself and his own family and his own church, and that’s it. "I have sinned a great deal against my heavenly Father," he says, "during the 25 years I’ve lived with him. But the greatest sin I have committed since my conversion, the way I have grieved my Lord the most, is in connection with prayer, my neglect of prayer for others. This neglect is the cause of my many other sins of omission as well as of commission. The countless opportunities which I failed to make use of, the many answers to prayer God would have given me if I’d only prayed, accuse me more and more violently the more I become acquainted with the holy realm of prayer."

Here’s a mighty man of God who’s saying, "It takes God to pick us up and make us concerned about somebody that doesn’t belong to us." Now you’ve come to another level of prayer. We’re in the school of prayer, and some of us are just little tiny Christopher Robins, you know? We’re just starting, "God bless Mommy, I know that’s right, wasn’t it fun in the bath tonight?" stuff. And then some of us are really working at it, and we’ve got a little bit further, and we’re learning how to pray for our family, which we must learn to pray for our family. How many of us are prayer warriors? And God has taken us to a spiritual maturity that he can use us as a weapon in his hand to pray for his world.

How many people are unprayed for because I didn’t pray for them? Maybe that’s a prayer that we should ask God. Jim Elliot, Elizabeth Elliot’s husband, about to be martyred, sensed a low point. He was flat on his face under his broom tree about two weeks before he went out in that little airplane to his death.

And he said this in his journal: "Sometimes I say to myself, 'I’m a believer for nothing.' But in the hour I say, 'I’m quitting,' I hear, 'Believe me, little son. Please follow me to my Father’s house. I wish to lead you, little son, to a beautiful country.'" That’s what God said to him about two weeks before he was martyred. He was having a doubt-out. He was having a whiteout.

And what support are people on the field, on the front lines, need? And what support are people here at home, on the front lines, need? So Elijah, in the depths of his despair, was touched by God. "I’ve had it, Lord," he said. The fear factor and the fatigue factor combined to reduce him to helplessness.

And in a sense, God said, "Now, this is what I’ve been waiting for, Elijah." Because helplessness is the place where true prayer takes place. Again, Ole Hallesby: "As far as I can see, prayer has been ordained only for the helpless. Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he or she that is helpless can truly pray. God becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness. Prayer is for the helpless, but don’t let the feelings of helplessness stop you from praying. Helplessness is the real secret and impelling power of prayer. Prayer consists simply in telling God, day by day, in what ways you feel helpless."

Now, think about the way you pray. This is great. "Lord, I feel inadequate." "Yay!" says God. "I’m so glad! This is wonderful! I’ve been waiting for you to feel helpless so that all of my help"—Holy Spirit’s name is the Helper—"all my help can fill up what’s lacking in you." "Lord, I feel helpless, I’m out of control." When you get your teenagers, you are out of control! And God says that’s a great place to pray from your helplessness. From your helplessness.

I read about how they get sheep down in places where sheep get, like on a ledge. And there was an Eastern shepherd that went after a sheep and he saw it, right up on a crag, and it had got itself on this little tiny ledge that was hardly room for this big woolly sheep. And so the shepherd was thrilled to bits; now he could rescue this sheep. And he took a long time, scrabbling up to where the sheep was. But he eventually got to this place.

And when he got there, the sheep saw him coming and began to react violently and nearly fell off the ledge. And so he realized he had to let it get so weak it was nearly dead before he could rescue it. When it was utterly helpless, he gauged it just right, that it could not react, then he rescued it. And so often the shepherd waits for the little sheep to come to the point of stopping reacting and stopping struggling and just helpless. And then in all his power and all his glory, his strength is made perfect is shown off in our weakness, Paul says.

So when you’re saying, "I’ve had enough, Lord," you’re on the way to seeing some of your prayers answered. Just say, "I’m a prayer read me." If you can’t say anything, you’ve run out of prayers, just read me, Lord. I often say that. I kneel or I lie flat on my face or I sit before the Lord or I stand before the Lord, doesn’t matter. And I say, "I’m a prayer. I don’t have words. I can’t put this into words."

So we’re running out of faith and we’re running out of steam and we’re running out of options. And God, who gives us divine permission to be pooped for a while sometimes, because he wants us to learn helplessness leads to help, gives us permission to sleep, permission to rest, permission to receive instead of give, be blessed instead of always having to be a blessing. He cooks us breakfast. He gives us some loving practical touch. He lets us attend. We are whole people; we are physical, we are emotional, we are psychological.

And he will send people from the body of Christ so often to cook us breakfast and to give us that wonderful touch. I think I’ve told the story of being just out, out of steam. Not out of energy spiritually, but on a long trip down south of coming to a camp where I was speaking, this is years ago now. And I went to the kitchen and couldn’t get in; I arrived at midnight and they weren’t expecting me, but I knew where my speaker’s cabin was, I’d been there before.

So I went to the kitchen, which I knew where it was, and it was all locked up. But it had glass doors and I saw my breakfast waiting for me! I was absolutely starving. I’d missed meals on planes and I hadn’t eaten for a couple of days properly. And I sat there on the chair looking at my breakfast outside the glass. And I said, "Lord, I am so hungry. But you know, I’m really sort of fruity hungry. I’d love a peach. I really, I just feel peachy."

And then I laughed. I thought, "Well, I’ll just have to wait for breakfast, my banana." And I went to my cabin, and there on the step was a basket of peaches. Now, people often put fruit in my room, but never before or since have I ever received a basket of peaches. Big peaches! And I remember standing there saying, "Lord!" And then I remember him saying, "Have a peach." I never did figure out or find out—I asked—who gave them. I’m not saying the angels gave me them, I’m not saying they didn’t. It was such a practical, loving little thing to do. If you know somebody that’s flat on their face under a broom tree, give them a peach. Take their kids off them, do something practical, cook them soup, do something. Something that women can do very, very well.

"Take my life," said Elijah, "I’m no better than my fathers." The death wish was there. Let me say one thing about suicide: suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Always remember that. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

I had a friend who was busy trying to commit suicide about 20 years ago. All the pastors of the church at the time were trying to help her. Nothing seemed to work. It was obvious she was going to do it unless God really intervened. People prayed. Really prayed for this lady.

And one day she came in, she was quite different, and she said, "It’s all right, don’t worry about me anymore. I’m not going to take my life. I’m no better than my fathers," that had been her story as long as I’d known her. She said, "It’s all right, I’m through. I understand now what I’ve got to do. It’s all right, I’m not going to take my life." I said, "What made the difference?" And she said, "Well, somehow the thought came to me that if I did kill myself, I’d have to face Jesus and say, 'You weren’t enough.' And I couldn’t do that. I’d have to face Jesus and say, 'You weren’t enough,' and I couldn’t do that."

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. God did not answer that prayer. What a blessing he didn’t! He would never have anointed the king of Israel and Judah, he would never have found Elisha and mentored him into a ministry that actually was a double portion of the blessing that Elijah had. God used Elisha in a mightier way than he ever used Elijah. And that would never have happened if God had answered his prayer under the broom tree.

So what do we do when we’re out of prayers? Well, we start and listen to the still small voice saying to us, "What are you doing here, Elijah? What are you doing? This isn’t where I want you. This isn’t where I want you spiritually. Maybe this isn’t where I want you materially or physically. What are you doing here? You should be there."

If we open ourselves up to God’s direction, even at our low points, if we revisit our past and deal with our present and take on the future as he did, then the whole experience will have been worth it from eternity’s point of view. He revisited his past; he went to Horeb. That was his spiritual past. When you’re in a hole, revisit your past. God is good, God is holy, God is right. God met Moses here when Moses was a failure. Revisit the things you know are true.

Revisit your past. That’s why he went to Horeb, I believe. Everything happened at Horeb: the burning bush, the water out of the rock, Israel’s great failure worshipping the calves, and God’s forgiveness, sending them on into the present land. He went and he just thought about his past. What do I really know of God? What do I really know, gut-level down, is true? Even though I’ve had this doubt-out and all of that.

And then you deal with the present. "I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be there. I’m not supposed to be hiding afraid for my life. My life is in his hands; he’s numbered my days. What happened to me? I’ve been so scared they’d take my life. What happened to me? What am I doing here in this spiritual morass?" Deal with the present, admit it, pray about it, confess it. Yes, you can hide out for a minute, but come out when he calls you out and take on the future. Elijah went from there.

Now, how do we know—one thought—that we’re listening to the whispers of God and not our own voices? I am an imaginative person. I have a very vivid, creative imagination, and that can be a blessing and a curse. It can be a danger because I often hear little voices in my head, and I don’t trust any of them. Often hearing little voices; I don’t know whose little voices they are. I tell you what I do: I ask, "Does this little voice that’s talking to me jibe with Scripture?"

God does not whisper words in our minds that contradict the written Word of God and his practice and principles. You got that? He does not whisper little words in your mind that contradict the written Word of God and its practice and principles.

So if you’re hearing a little voice telling you, like a woman said to me, "I don’t love my husband anymore, but I love this woman’s husband, so it must feel so good it must be right and God is telling me he wants me to be happy." And I said, "Now wait a minute. How is he telling you this?" "Well, he’s telling me, I hear this in my head, 'I want you to be happy,' so thing to do is to divorce this man and marry this man and, you know, despite the fact he’s got a wife and family," didn’t seem to come into it. And all of this.

And I said, "That’s not the whisper of God. That’s not the voice of God, that’s the voice of a devil: confusion." And it’s so obvious and yet we often say, "God told me," and we are listening to voices that might be of ourselves or of Satan, of an angel of light. And what we have to do is say, "Does this jibe with Scripture? Would God tell me to divorce my husband, marry somebody else’s husband? Of course he wouldn’t, because the principles of Scripture say you should be faithful to your husband." So that’s a no-brainer. That’s a no-brainer.

Does it jibe with Scripture? Secondly, does it talk about the will of God, the glory of God? Would what this little suggestion in my mind, would it end in his glory to his name and in his will? Does it accuse me, or does it encourage me? The devil is the accuser of the brethren.

Now, in college, my daughter suffered a real down time and battled with anorexia. Not bulimia, but anorexia. It was epidemic on the campuses; still is on some campuses. And it was just when that epidemic began in America; it was just like a wave. And she was there as a freshman at that time and she just got caught up in it along with a lot of her friends.

And I remember standing at Wheaton visiting her; she did not take her coat off the whole time I was there. She couldn’t do that; she couldn’t let me see what was left on her bones, which was nothing. And so she just kept her outdoor coat on and she said, "Let’s go to the cafeteria, Mom." I’d been speaking in chapel.

And I was behind her in the line and I tell you, I will never forget: she got her tray and I got mine and her face just went into a mask of determination. And she put it down and she willed herself to take some food and put it on that plate. And she went all the way down the line without being able to do it, and out the other end, and turned to me with tears streaming down her face and said, "There’s a little voice, Mommy, there’s a little voice telling me, 'You mustn’t eat, you mustn’t eat.'"

And I took the tray out of her hand and I said, "Judy, whose little voice is that? Whose little voice is that? You have to talk to that little voice. You have to tell it the truth. You have to answer that little voice in the name of God. You have to do that; I can’t do that for you." And God be praised, with help, she came out of that, and so did many, many of those other girls. But those little voices, they’re talking to our kids. They’re going to be talking to your kids.

Told the story of a six-year-old down here at an inner-city school, taught by one of our Christian members here. Six-year-old who is trying to commit suicide every day. They have people working with him, they have pastors, they have social workers, they have teachers. Katie pray for her; she’s the teacher of this little six-year-old. Katie goes to school each day prayed up.

And she came very upset to me one day during HARK rehearsals and said, "I nearly lost him today. He got out the door before I could get him." And she said, "I was into the traffic with him before I got hold of him." But I tell you, there are little voices telling that six-year-old, "You’ve got to kill yourself. No point living." And he has not too much point to his life, poor little guy. "No point living, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do this." And that’s what he says: "There’s this little voice, this little voice telling me, 'Run into the traffic,' that’s what it’s telling me."

So the whisper of God, is it going to tell you to run into the traffic? Is it going to tell you to destroy something? No, of course not. And yet even though it seems to be a no-brainer, we listen to the whispers of the devil instead of the whispers of God. We have to learn to discern. Let all the words be "Father filtered," I often say. Let the Father filter them for you as they come into your mind.

And so he said to Elijah, "Go down the mountain. Failure’s never final. Yes, you know, it would have been really nice if you’d gone through the gates and done what I’d liked to have done. But God wasn’t upset. He knew it would happen. He had his plans and purposes in place." And Elijah went from there. Elijah went from there.

And if you can take all the times that it’s tough and all the times that it’s difficult and try and look to them and say, "What did I learn out of this? What did God teach me?" you’ll get bigger as a person standing before the Lord. And I’ll tell you something else: your prayers are really going to make a difference. You will be able to pray up a storm or down a storm, as Elijah did, in people’s lives. If you can learn that helplessness drives you to God, thank him for those times that reduce you to size and help you to learn the power there is in prayer. You are coming to a king; large petitions with you bring.

Pray with me.

Heavenly Father, there are times in all of our lives when we run out of faith, when we run out of steam, and we run out of options. And we find ourselves like Elijah saying, "I’m afraid. I’ve had enough, Lord." And then your whisper comes, "What are you doing here, Elijah? This isn’t where I want you. I want you on your feet. I want you to be my woman, I want you to be my man. I want you out in my world, my lost and terrible world, telling the truth, helping people, teaching them how to pray and read the Bible, just doing my work."

Teach us how to discern the voice of God. Teach us to be warned when the devil whispers his horrible words into our ears. Protect our children. Help us to teach them how to discern that too. Help us to pray diligently for our own and help us to pray for other people’s children. And I thank you for every Christian teacher in every secular school who’s in a battle, yet you have put them there. And I thank you for their prayers for their pupils on a day-to-day basis. Encourage them, strengthen them. Let them see answers to those prayers among the children that they serve.

And we pray for each other, that you would send us out of this place encouraged, excited, and ready to go. Make us prayer warriors. We ask it for your kingdom’s sake. Amen.