A Superhero in fear

June 3, 2009

Today's Reading: 1 Kings 19-20 and Psalm 25-26

I have a confession to make: I have always wanted to be a superhero. However, the lack of radioactive spiders, gamma bombs, cosmic rays, and all other pseudo-science has been absent in my life. Granted, I have had some tragic things happen in my life, but my parents divorce has never driven me over the edge to motivate me to get into a spandex suit and fight crime.

I think the appeal of superheroes is the power of God in the hands of man. Of course, if there is one thing that comic books have taught us is that having power isn’t easy. Sure, you may be able to take out the ordinary bad guys, but there is always a limit. Just like Superman has a Kryptonite, I’m pretty certain that most super-powered good guys would not stand a chance if all the villains in the world ganged up on them.

In fact, that was happening with Elijah. I mean, this guy made fire fall from the sky like he was some Human Torch, then he outran the king to Jezreel like the Flash. And before that, he made oil multiply. Man, I don’t know any superhero that could do that? If there was one, I would imagine he would be pretty popular right now with oil prices going up and all.

Okay, that was a stupid contemporary commentary, I admit it, but I couldn’t believe the reading today when Elijah was afraid. Man, he had done some pretty amazing stuff, and now he was scared? I mean, this is the guy who had ravens bring his food.

Then Elijah learns a valuable a lesson as God sends earth(quake), wind, and fire on that mountain that Elijah was dwelling in. Then there was the whisper, a voice of God that was more powerful than powers.

By the way do you know what happened to Elijah? As far as I know, nothing. In fact, the story seems to go away from Elijah after he finds an assistant. Yeah, I know, he’s probably going to be killed, and he gets a secondhand man. Man, that’s like Batman getting Robin after the Joker, Riddler, and Penguin put out a hit on him.

So, what can we learn? Problems are never as bad as we think, and even if they are, then God will give us the power we need to get over them. Until then, we need to remember who we are, and that we can do some pretty cool stuff.