Elijah was ready to die. “Take my life,” he prayed to God, lying utterly exhausted under a broom bush in the wilderness. Exasperated, weary, desperate, dejected, bewildered. I am guessing Elijah felt all of these in addition to his physical fatigue. He just wanted to be done. And God did not try to talk Elijah out of the pit. Instead, an angel appeared with bread, water and instructions to “get up and eat.”  Elijah complied, then laid down again. And the angel appeared a second time, with the same message: “get up and eat.” Again, Elijah obeyed.

I wonder why Elijah ate and drank. Nourishment was not what he had hoped God would bring to him. I doubt the yeasty smell of bread baking over coals was enough to coax the prophet back from the edge of death. Dying in his sleep probably sounded much better than putting energy into staying alive. There had to be something about the way the bread and water came to Elijah that got his attention and changed his mind so quickly.  

We know that an angel appeared, the bread was baked over hot coals and the water was in a jar. It’s a bizarre scene to imagine in the middle of the desert. Rather than leading Elijah to a hidden stream or raining manna from the sky, the angel of God went to work in a makeshift kitchen. Perhaps God knew this was the only way to capture the attention of desperate Elijah and change his mind.

I am tempted to live as if things like this only happened in Old Testament times, as if bizarre answers to prayers were for them but not me. I label the unusual as “strange” rather than divine. Too often, my focus is on the bread and water of answered prayers in my life, or whether or not I should say yes to them. I don’t pay enough attention to how the bread and water got there. When I operate in this way, I miss the bizarre. I miss the angels. I miss God.