Arise and eat

1 Kings 19:5
Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel[a] touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.”

Elijah had just won a great victory over all the false prophets and had them destroyed. Jezebel was incredibly angry at this and swore to destroy Elijah. After learning of this threat from the Queen, Elijah was terrified and ran into the wilderness to hide.

This may be very puzzling for many readers, even believers. God had just showed His hand and helped Elijah defeat all the other prophets in public. But now, Elijah was seen running for his life. The question is what happened to his faith in God.

Elijah seemed to be utterly terrified. He prayed to God asking to die - and many commentators thought that he was depressed at this stage. We could not understand what Elijah went through nor what happened to his faith. It does seem that he was overcome with fear and felt defeated.

God's help to Elijah came in the form of an angel who twice said "Arise and eat". This apparently simple command, when obeyed by Elijah, was able to bring him back to reality - which is that God was with him. His fear obviously drove him to forget about simple things like eating. When the angel told him to arise and eat, and his obedience to God's servant, enabled him to pull himself together. Perhaps we too are surrounded by circumstances that overwhelm us and we cannot see good reason. Sometimes God's commands are simple and powerful, we just need to listen and obey.