“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently.”

When you think of the characters in scripture, do you have a tendency to put them on a pedestal?  Or maybe you use them as an excuse:  “I could never be like King David.  I’m certainly no prophet.  I could never live the spiritual life that Paul led.  I could never trust God like Ruth did.”

The key to Elijah’s life was not that he was this super-man prophet.  No, it’s that he was a man like us, and he prayed fervently.  The same is true of Peter, Paul, Mary (Pun intended), Ruth, David, Abraham, Moses.  They had a nature like ours, and they prayed fervently.  To the same God that we pray to today.  The very same, just as they sat under the very same moon and stars that we sit under today.

Look around at the people you admire in this church.  Jane Hudgins comes to my mind–I often think, “Oh, if I ccould just be like her, if I could just learn to trust God and to pray fervently like Jane.  But she would be the first to say, that she is simply a person like everyone else, with all their beautiful things and not-so pretty faults.  She has a nature like mine, a nature like Elijah’s, and she prays fervently.