At this very moment, the great Old Testament prophet Elijah is still alive. He lives on because he never died and was taken to heaven in God’s whirlwind. But even if God had chosen to allow Elijah to experience physical death, Elijah would remain in yet another of his many powerful manifestations. The apostle James, the half-brother of Jesus, saw to it.
      Elijah appears in 1 Kings 17 and departs in 2 Kings 2:11, a span of only eight chapters of the Old Testament. But it is in the New Testament that we perhaps learn our most important lesson from the life of Elijah:
      Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly . . . .”
      In James 5:17, the truth of Elijah is revealed, removing the cloak of mystery from our eyes. Elijah was like us. He was a normal man selected by God for great service because the spirit of Elijah was a spirit of prayer. He prayed earnestly. He also obeyed God, even when the instructions seemed irrational. The results changed the world.
      Elijah was God’s messenger during a period of great rebellion in Israel. King Ahab and his decadent wife, Jezebel, worshiped the idol, Baal. They destroyed the altars of Jehovah God and led Israel into worship of the storm god who supposedly controlled the elements and fertility.
      God answered by having Elijah announce that no rain would fall until God said so through Elijah. The drought would last for three and a half years, proving who was actually in charge of the elements. During this time, God miraculously sustained Elijah with food. First, God sent ravens to feed Elijah morning and evening by the brook Cherith (Kerith). But God’s provision required an act of Elijah’s obedience. “I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there,” God told Elijah. There was no other place Elijah would find these airmailed rations.
      When the brook ran dry because of the drought, God sent Elijah to Zarephath. There, he was fed by a widow whose meager flour and oil God supernaturally maintained.
      Yet it was on Mt. Carmel that Elijah most powerfully revealed that he was mighty in spirit. He challenged four hundred and fifty of Baal’s priests to have their god send fire to consume their offering of an ox. All day long the priests fanatically wailed for Baal to send fire -- to no avail.
      “But the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16 kjv). Up stepped Elijah. He doused his offering with twelve buckets of water just to make God’s point. It became an exclamation point. God’s instant fire answered a humble prayer, consuming ox, wood, and water. After Elijah commanded the execution of the Baal priests, he went to his knees again. He prayed for rain to end the drought, and the skies gushed.
      In the Bible Exposition Commentary, Warren Wiersbe writes: “Do we need ‘showers of blessing’ today? We certainly do! ‘But Elijah was a special prophet of God,’ we might argue. ‘We can expect God to answer his prayers in a wonderful way.’ ‘Elijah was a man just like us,’ stated James (5:17 niv). He was not perfect. . . . He was a ‘righteous man,’ that is, obedient to the Lord and trusting Him. God’s promises of answered prayer are for all His children, not just for ones we may call the spiritual elite.”
     Elijah was human, indeed. Instead of further trusting God after He defeated Baal’s prophets and brought rain again, Elijah fled when Jezebel grew furious. Elijah would spend forty days in the wilderness and long for death before reaching Mt. Sinai in southern Judah. Despite Elijah’s truancy against God, his Father provided for him again. An angel ministered to the rugged prophet with a supernatural supper, showing that God loves us even when we are outside of His will. At Mt. Sinai, God restored Elijah but didn’t speak to him in a windstorm, earthquake, or fire. He whispered. Elijah heard a still, small voice, and he began to remember that God was enough.
      Shhhh. Listen. How many times did God answer Elijah? Every time.
      Elijah is known as a prophet of miracles rather than one of words. But they were God’s miracles, not Elijah’s. And the same God who delivered Elijah is the same God who transfigured His Son (Matthew 17) in the presence of Elijah and the same God who can transform you today. The key ingredients are the same: God, prayer, and faith.
      “Too many times we fail to get what God promises because we stop praying,” Wiersbe writes. “Elijah was determined and concerned in his praying. ‘He prayed earnestly’ (James 5:17 niv). The literal Greek reads ‘and he prayed in prayer.’ Many people do not pray in their prayers. They just lazily say religious words, and their hearts are not in their prayers.”
      How often is your heart fervently in your prayers? In your wilderness, are you certain your heart is so tethered to God that you can hear Him? He has promised to answer. Shhhh. Listen. . . .