By Kaley Ihfe
l remember sitting in Ladies Bible Class at University Avenue Church in Austin, where a group of 20-30 women spent an hour every Wednesday in deep study of the word, listening to my friend Deanna Munger teach on I Kings 19.
In I Kings 18, Elijah called down fire to prove that God was God over Baal. Then Elijah outran Ahab, who was on a chariot, down the mountain as a storm came in. My husband has been in ministry for over 25 years, and we have had some really good ministry moments but none have been quite as powerful and miraculous as what Elijah experienced on Mount Carmel. What a high! Everything must have seemed to be going so well!
Suddenly, in I Kings 19, Jezebel threatens to kill Elijah, so Elijah runs away to the wilderness and sits down under a “solitary broom tree.” (Could anything sound more sad than a solitary broom tree in the wilderness?) The prophet lays down and asks God if he could just die.
This all sounds pretty melodramatic to me. Come on, Elijah! Don’t you remember what you just went through? All the great things that God just did? He set an altar soaked in water on fire! He brought rain that ended a horrible drought. He is a God of power!
But as Elijah sits under the solitary broom tree, he says, “‘I have had enough, Lord…Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” He then falls asleep and God sends an angel who wakes him up and offers him food.
You would think that God might have reminded him of his great power and chastised him for his lack of faith. But in this moment, in His great love, God recognizes that Elijah is completely exhausted and takes care of his physical needs. Before Elijah was ready to go on, he needed rest, food, and water.
I still remember my friend Deanna saying with compassion, “Have you ever felt completely exhausted? Completely discouraged?” Yes, many of us have. God doesn’t tell Elijah why he shouldn’t be exhausted and discouraged - rather, he meets him where he is.
People in ministry can relate to how Elijah felt. I run a ministry called Lavish HOPE, that seeks to pour God’s grace, love, and hope back into ministry wives through safe community and spiritual and physical nurturing. Most of us have never had the highs and lows of Elijah - our highs may not be quite as high and our lows may not be quite as low. But we often come in really tired. We love our husbands, our children, our churches, our jobs - we are trying to do it all, and we are exhausted. And as we all know, exhaustion can lead to burnout which can lead to just being done.
At Lavish HOPE, we start with taking care of women’s personal needs and we go from there. We make sure they have great food to eat and plenty of time to rest - and then we move on to conversation and to prayer.
There is a lot I could say about Lavish HOPE, but I want to point to something that is available to everyone: If you are deep in ministry, and you are tired, it’s okay. You don’t have to keep pushing yourself. Take some time to rest and to be nurtured. Reach out to others for help. It is not self-indulgent. It is necessary. God will meet you where you are and give you what you need to keep on going.
Kaley Ihfe is the Director of Lavish HOPE. Kaley Ihfe serves as the Director of Lavish HOPE Ministries. She has a B.S. in Communications, an M.Ed. in School Counseling, and an M.A. in Christian Ministry. She has served alongside her husband, Karl Ihfe, in ministry for 25 years, first in Austin and currently lives in Lubbock. If you would like to learn more about this ministry, go to lavishhope.org or email her at kaley@lavishhope.org.