I cried when I read this again. A few years ago I felt just as Elijah did. I asked God to let me die. God knows whether it was depression or world weariness or a blessing. But also as Elijah did, I heard a still small voice. It said, “I need you to live.” From there I have become a better person, spouse, and neighbor. I am closer to God. I share the joy of my salvation. It is enough.

But he himself 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.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.”

1 Kings 19:4-5 Bible Gateway Link

(For context) 1 Kings 19:4-18 - Biblegateway link: RSVCE

God blessed me with a dramatic conversion. I never had a moment’s doubt that he saved me and changed my heart. On the road to Damascus, the risen Jesus changed Saul’s heart. Saul went from killing Christians to “preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.” When I pray, I try not to ask God to solve my problems. I ask him, if it’s his will, to change my heart.

 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

Acts 9:26-31 - Bible Gateway link. ESV

Solomon’s benediction overwhelms me with gratitude. Through the centuries, think of all the people who have kept us connected with our Great God. He is ours and we are his. Impossible if God were not God. Even I, a breath in time, can know God personally and receive his blessings when I “walk in all his ways.” When I fail, he forgives me. I am so humbled.

Now as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord , where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven. And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, “Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant. The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

Bible Gateway link: 1 Kings 8:54-61 (ESV)