exaggerate the negative…

the fourth mistake elijah made that lead to his being depressed is in the second part of verse 10 of 1 kings 19 (cev), i am the only one left and now they're trying to kill me too. he exaggerated the negative. poor me! elijah is having a pity party. everybody's against me!

but the fact was, everybody wasn't against him. there was only one person – one woman and her threat was an empty threat. if elijah had just thought about it instead of listening to his feelings, he'd have realized that there was no way jezebel would have killed him.

notice in verse 2 it said jezebel sent a messenger to say, tomorrow i'm going to kill you. if jezebel had really intended to kill him, she wouldn't have sent a messenger to warn him. she would have just sent a hitman. jezebel was much too clever to have elijah knocked off. elijah was very influential. if he'd been a martyr that would have only increased his influence and probably caused a revolution in the country. on top of that, she was probably afraid of what GOD would do to her if she touched GOD’s man. it was just a threat.

so she let him get away to the desert. why? because she didn't want to kill him, she just wanted to make him a coward in front of the nation. that was her plan.  one minute in chapter 18, elijah is a hero. in chapter 19, elijah is a zero but elijah didn't stop to think about that.

but he didn't look at it that way. why? because when we're depressed, we always exaggerate the negative. everything looks bad. if you're depressed, the world is going to pot. everything is going to the dogs. you're pessimistic. everything you look at stinks. it's your attitude. it's your filter. it's the way you're looking at it. it's the way you're thinking. your thinking affects everything.

i heard about a grocery store where they had an old wino hanging around. one day he fell asleep and they stuck some limburger cheese under his mustache. he woke up saying, “this place stinks.” he walked out. everywhere he went he kept smelling it. finally he just sat down and said, “the whole world stinks!” and we do that when we're depressed. it's not the world. it's the way we look at it. it's our attitude.

the fact is, elijah wasn't the only one. in verse 18 (niv), but seven thousand israelites have refused to worship baal. there are plenty other people. but elijah exaggerated it.

we always do these things. we focus on our feelings, not the facts. we blame ourselves for things that aren't our fault. we compare ourselves to others and we exaggerate the negative.

just a thought from the front porch…