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If you ever are in a tight spot, I’m your hype girl.  I will hold your hand—or listen to you on the phone—and with 100% confidence tell you:

Our God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ask or think.  Eph 3:20

and when you start to shake your head or say something negative, I’ll remind you of Luke 1:37

  For with God, nothing is impossible.

I believe that 100% from the deepest part of my soul…until I hit a blindspot in my own life.

BLINDSPOT  /noun/ an area where a person’s view is obstructed.

Why, oh why can we sing about the greatness of the Lord, minister to friends with 100% confidence and then, when faced with a battle of our own retreat to a place of doubt and sink into despair?  If this has ever happened to you, you aren’t alone.

Let’s cruise into 1 Kings 18 for a confidence boost.

We zoom in to find Samaria deep into a famine.  Ahab is king, his wife Jezebel has been killing prophets right and left and rain has not touched the land in some time.  It’s bleak.   After three years, the Lord tells Elijah to return to Ahab with a message.  There is some back and forth with  Obadiah and eventually Ahab and Elijah set up a prophets showdown on Mount Carmel.

Four hundred and fifty of Baal’s prophets come.  Two oxen are prepared for sacrifice.  The first sacrifice to be burned wins.  Baal’s prophets start.  All morning long they pray, but no fire comes.  Elijah finally offered this helpful suggestion, “Call out with a loud voice, since he is a god; undoubtedly he is attending to business, or is on the way, or is on a journey.  Perhaps he is asleep and will wake up.”  1 Kings 18:27.  As my grandmother would say, he was bit “cheeky” or today we would say he was very confident.  Baal’s prophets cried out with a louder voice and began to cut themselves, according to their custom, until blood gushed out on them.  They continued until the evening, “but there was no voice, no one answered and no one paid attention.”  1 Kings 18:29.  Ouch

In the evening, Elijah asked everyone to gather around.  He repaired the altar of the Lord which had been torn down; he gathered 12 stones and used those to build an altar.  He then dug a trench around the altar, “large enough to hold two measures of seed” or about six gallons.   Elijah prepared the sacrifice and then asked for some water.  He asked for four large jars to be filled with water and he poured it on the oxen.  Then he asked to do it again.  And again.  The water saturated the wood and filled the trench.  Elijah prayed.

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood, and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.  When all the people saw this they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God!”  1 Kings 18:38-39 

The fire sent from heaven consumed everything.  There was NO doubt as to who truly was God.

After that, all the prophets of Baal were killed.  The story doesn’t end there.  Ahab returns in a chariot to Jezreel while “the hand of the Lord was on Elijah” and the prophet ran so fast he beat the chariot just as the heavy rains began to fall on the land.

Whew!  That was HUGE.  Seriously, after a day like that how could a person ever doubt the power of the Lord?

However, Elijah had a blind spot.  Ahab’s wife Jezebel hated Elijah and promised to kill him.  Now, we all know who is the all powerful being in this scenario, but just a few verses later in 1 Kings 19:3-4 we find Elijah running into the wilderness sitting under a broom tree and asking the Lord to let him die.  “Enough!  Now Lord, take my life” he cries out.  How did he go from the height of seeing the Lord literally rain fire down from heaven and follow it with a flood of water to fearing one person so much he sits alone in a desert wishing to die?

Blindspots happen to the best of us.  The big question is what are you going to do with them?

Throughout this site you will find all kinds of strategies to believe God’s vision for your life.  Keep a journal of His provision for you, ask friends for their stories of God’s goodness, lean into the stories of the Bible All Stars, ask the Lord to fill your mind with Him and most of all, stand on the Word of the Lord.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind.  James 1:6

You aren’t alone and please don’t allow your blindspots to lead you into a place isolation. The team at Prize 31 are here for you. 

So, my friends, what are you going to do today to eliminate your blindspots?