1 Kings 19:4-8 (NRSV)
Read 1 Kings 19:4-8 on biblegateway.com
Verse 4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." Verse 5Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." Verse 6He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. Verse 7The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." Verse 8He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
Devotion
I love food. I eat it every day. Sure, I've felt the hunger pangs of a missed meal, but never was I hungry like Elijah. Never did I lie face down in the hot sand, too hungry to walk, too hungry to keep awake, too hungry to survive.
But I've been spiritually hungry. Face down in my cold clammy hands, too hungry to pray, too hungry to hope, too hungry for sense. Have you ever been hungry like that? Like Elijah, we're not entirely lucid in those periods of life, spiritually coming in and out of consciousness, not knowing how we'll make it through.
But looking back, we see the evidence—moments when God came and blessed us with a little food. Maybe it was encouragement from a loved one. Maybe some word in a sermon. Maybe the mystery of the Eucharist. God loves food too. God gives it every day.
Prayer
Lord God, in the desert places of our lives, come to us. When we haven't anything to eat, feed us. When we fall, pick us up. Amen.