with

Mike Bellah

"I alone am left" is more than a statement. It's an attitude.

When it seems like bad things keep happening no matter how hard we try to succeed, we're prime for an Elijah Complex. "I alone am left," we say.

Most often help comes to us in the quiet, unnoticed, ordinary things of a normal day. Just because we do not see and hear God working, doesn't mean he isn't.

 "I alone am left." Do you recognize the words? They belong to an Old Testament prophet named Elijah, but my question is not about biblical trivia. Rather it's about you and me; it's about how we see life; it's about depression. "I alone am left" is more than a statement. It's an attitude. So now do you recognize the words?

I do. They are the words I use when I let depression destroy my perspective. Psychologists call it all or nothing thinking. When we're depressed, we often accentuate the negative and dismiss the positive. Call it the Elijah Complex.

"I'll never get a job," we say after one more rejection letter, or "I'll never get better," after a physical setback, or "They'll never change," when a friend disappoints us, or "Nobody cares about me," when we're neglected by someone.

Elijah's depression in I Kings 19 is instructive. In the first place, it strikes him without warning in the wake of his biggest success (the conquest of the false prophets of Baal in I Kings 18). It's a circumstance I see often in letters from midlifers. When we finally reach major goals in life, often the result is not what we thought it would be. The accomplishment did not make all our problems go away as expected. In fact, some become even worse.

That's what happened to Elijah. After such a victory, you would think his enemies would finally give him some respect. At least they might leave him alone for awhile. He had no such luck. His great victory just made the evil Queen Jezebel more determined to hunt him down and kill him.

And that's enough to make any of us depressed. When it seems like bad things keep happening no matter how hard we try to succeed, we're prime for an Elijah Complex. "I alone am left," we say.

But Elijah was not alone. He was not the only true prophet left in Israel. His depression had caused him to miscount by 7,000--the number of fellow prophets who had hidden successfully from the murderous Queen Jezebel.

Similarly, our all or nothing thinking is factually incorrect. Several rejections do not mean we are unemployable. Normal healing includes some setbacks. People do change, but most do so slowly over time. And even the most cared for will sometimes feel neglected.

What Elijah needed (and what we do too when we're depressed) was perspective. He needed a fresh look at his reality that could see past his present troubles. So God had him stand on a mountain where he could observe a perspective-producing object lesson.

In quick succession Elijah experienced tornadic winds, an earthquake and a raging fire. Yet, the Bible notes in each case, God was not in these extraordinary events. Instead it was from a gentle breeze that God finally addressed Elijah.

The lesson seems clear. Most often help comes to us in the quiet, unnoticed, ordinary things of a normal day. Just because we do not see and hear God working, doesn't mean he isn't. Just because problems persist, does not mean we are forsaken. Just because we lose sight of our allies, does not mean there are none.

In short, we may feel like it; we may even tell ourselves it is so, but we are not alone.