Thank God Elijah was “just like us”! He sat under a tree, complained to God, and expressed his unbelief—just as we have often done. Yet this was not the case at all when he was truly in touch with God. “Elijah was a man just like us,” yet “he prayed earnestly.” The literal meaning of this in the Greek is magnificent: instead of saying, “earnestly,” it says, “He prayed in prayer.” In other words, “He kept on praying.” The lesson here is that you must keep praying.

Climb to the top of Mount Carmel and see that great story of faith and sight. After Elijah had called down fire from heaven to defeat the prophets of Baal, rain was needed for God’s prophecy to be fulfilled. And the man who could command fire from heaven could bring rain using the same methods. We are told, “Elijah . . . bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees” (1 Kings 18:42), shutting out all sights and sounds. He put himself in a position, beneath his robe, to neither see nor hear what was happening.

Elijah then said to his servant, “Go and look toward the sea” (1 Kings 18:43). Upon returning, the servant replied, “There is nothing there.” How brief his response must have seemed! “Nothing!” Can you imagine what we would do under the same circumstances? We would say, “Just as I expected!” and then would stop praying. But did Elijah give up? No. In fact, six times he told his servant, “Go back.” Each time the servant returned saying, “Nothing!”

Yet “the seventh time the servant reported, ‘A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea’” (1 Kings 18:44). What a fitting description, for a man’s hand had been raised in prayer to God before the rains came. And the rains came so fast and furiously that Elijah warned Ahab to “go down before the rain stops you.”

This is a story of faith and sight—faith cutting itself off from everything except God, with sight that looks and yet sees nothing. Yes, in spite of utterly hopeless reports received from sight, this is a story of faith that continues “praying in prayer.”

Do you know how to pray in that way—how to prevail in prayer? Let your sight bring you reports as discouraging as possible, but pay no attention to them. Our heavenly Father lives, and even the delays of answers to our prayers are part of His goodness. ARTHUR TAPPAN PIERSON

Each of three young boys once gave a definition of faith that illustrates the important aspect of tenacity. The first boy defined faith as “taking hold of Christ,” the second as “keeping our hold on Him,” and the third as “not letting go of Him.”

The fields were parched for lack of rain. The foliage of the green bay tree wilted in the sun. The earth was dry like powder, and gray dust covered leaf and blade. There was no freshness anywhere. As far as eye could see, nature seemed to have dressed herself in sackcloth and ashes. We have never seen such drought as that which had fallen upon Israel in the days of Elijah the Tishbite. There had been no rain for three and a half years. The fields had not yielded their increase, and little children cried for food.

Elijah was on Mount Carmel praying for rain. “Go,” he said to his servant, “and look out toward the sea and tell me if any sign of rain appears.” Seven times he went and surveyed the western horizon, where the sky seemed to drop into the glittering Mediterranean. The seventh time he returned and said, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.”

A very little cloud it was, but sufficient to assure Elijah that God was answering prayer and that the day of refreshment had come for all the land of Israel.

It is not always so with men. When we cry to God we are impatient to see God’s finished answer all at once. We rise from our knees, and because the heavens do not hang heavily with clouds, we are too quick to think that God is withholding His showers of blessing. But God usually gives us by slow degrees the things we need.

We grow impatient because we have not the sensibility of soul to detect the faint beginnings of God’s mercies. The first gray tints that touch the eastern skies are a promise of the coming day. The first flickering ray of light that steals across our soul when we cry to God is the beginning of His answer. The first indefinable feeling of comfort that slips into the distressed soul is a little cloud bearing promise of refreshing showers.

“I knelt and prayed,” said a young woman, “and it seemed that I saw a light across my way, and then I was sure that the thing perplexing me would come out all right.” The light that shone for a moment in the heart’s secret places was the harbinger of great happiness and blessing.

Broken heart, crying to God for comfort, take courage from moments which come like respites when the weight of sorrow is for a little while lightened! How delicately God deals with us! These are intimations of the peace which in the process of God’s providence shall at last come.

Perplexed heart, crying to God for guidance, be assured by the events that seem to turn your life in a particular direction and by the light that every now and then falls on your problems—be assured that God is beginning to answer your prayer!

O Guilty heart, crying to God for forgiveness, let your desires for purity, your bitterness of soul, the faint whisperings of Divine love heard only by the spirit’s ear— let all of these tell you that God is already hearing and answering. Our skies are dotted with little clouds, faint beginnings of God’s mercies. They assure the waiting heart of greater clouds just beyond the horizon, laden with His blessings. COSTEN J. HARRELL

Watch for God’s faint beginnings!

Elijah was a man who hoped perfectly; hoped against hope until the abundant answer came. He continued, in the very face of darkness and perplexity, to expect, because the very God of hope lived in him and expected through him. And he was not ashamed, for it came to pass the seventh time his servant said, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea” (v. 44), and in a little while the heaven was black with clouds, and there was a great rain!

Can you count God faithful when only the still small voice speaks? When there is neither wind, earthquake, nor fire? Can you start when you see the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand? Can you say: “ ‘There is nothing,’ but I wait on Thee. My mind is peculiarly in the dark regarding the way I am to take, but Thou knowest. Unto Thee do I look up!”

“There is nothing”—though the raindrops needed sorely and so long Have been promised by Jehovah, by the Father true and strong. And the sky is blue and cloudless, and the earth is parched and dry, Yet no showers are forthcoming from the reservoir on high.

“There is nothing”—but the prophet knows and trusts his Master’s word; He is not a senseless idol, but the mighty, powerful God. He has seen His wondrous working, he believes Him faithful still; So he humbly waits in patience for Jehovah’s perfect will.

“There is nothing”—oh, how often doth the enemy declare, Nothing for your constant wrestlings; nothing for your cries and tears. And the faithless heart says “Nothing,” though deceived she ne’er has been, For the little cloud so longed for, at the seventh time is seen.

“There is nothing”—but there shall be: God is still the Great “I AM.” He is now Almighty, faithful, and forevermore the same; And the tears, and cries, and wrestlings, have been recorded on high; Not forgotten, nor neglected, to be answered by and by.

JAMES BOOBYER