My Thursday post this week was skipped for a few reasons and this one is being posted a day early for the same reasons. Sometimes family takes priority over any other plans. This week continues in my reflections on James 5:13-20. Previous weeks's posts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
James 5:17-18 says, "Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earht produced its crops."
That first sentence made me stop. "Elijah was a human being, just like us." I don't often think of Old Testament prophets as being the same as we are. I see them as super-human somehow. This is a good reminder for me that Elijah was just another human being - a person who came to be someone so significant because he followed God's call on His life.
Because Elijah believed God and followed God, his prayers were powerful and effective. That same thing can be true of our lives. Our prayers do have the ability to cause God to act. They don't guarantee He will, but it can happen.
The biggest thing I think about with these verses is that Elijah's prayers made a difference because he followed God and was obedient to God's call on his life. It wasn't because Elijah was something special or had some kind of a special power. He really was a human being like us.
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