Even great leaders can suffer emotionally

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What can we learn from Elijah’s struggles?

1 Kings 19:1-4 – Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”

Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

Despite seeing God bring fire down from Heaven, and then rain, oppression came over the man of God, Elijah, when the demonic queen Jezebel threatened his life and put a curse on him, and he was gripped with fear and anxiety, running for his life for several miles. Laying in the woods, he told God he just wanted to die.


This is one of the godliest and most powerful men in the Bible on one of his darkest days. The scene shows that even the godliest people sometimes have real mental, emotional, and spiritual health struggles.

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