The Super Bowl Effect

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The Super Bowl Effect

By Grant Gaines

One of the greatest inventions to improve the television is the Digital Video Recorder or “DVR”. What sliced bread is to culinary pleasure, a DVR is to viewing pleasure. A DVR allows its user to record TV shows and then watch them at a later time. No longer do you have to hustle and bustle to get in front of your television set when you’re busy doing something else, you can simply press the record button and go about your business.

But that’s only half of the benefit of a DVR. The real value of having a DVR lies in the fact that you can fast-forward through commercials. Rather than watching 10 minutes of commercials per every 30 minute show, you can now roll right on past those pesky commercials. Well, that is of course except for the Super Bowl commercials.

The Super Bowl commercials are on a whole different playing field. Because of the huge budgets these companies have to play with for their Super Bowl ads (In 2013, the cost for a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl was $4 million dollars!); rarely does a commercial leave you without a smile. Super Bowl commercials have become so popular in fact, that many people would rather leave the TV to grab some seconds, use the restroom, or talk with their friends during the game rather than risking missing a great commercial.

And while we all love Super Bowl commercials, these mega ads have essentially been the downfall of all other commercials throughout the year. The bar is set so high from the Super Bowl that we as consumers are no longer entertained by a “regular” commercial, and so we just fast-forward right through the everyday ads, thanks to the DVR.

Elijah knew what it felt like to experience the “Super Bowl Effect”. In 1 Kings 18, he had just been the instrument through whom God used to abolish idol worship in Israel. The Lord did this by raining fire down from heaven per Elijah’s prayers (1 Kings 18:36-38), by defeating 400 idolatrous prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:40), and finally by breaking a three year drought as a direct response to Elijah’s requests (1 Kings 18:41-45).

And yet, despite this huge spiritual victory, we find Elijah in a depressed state only one short chapter later in 1 Kings 19. Elijah had fled from the evil King Ahab and was now in the desert all alone and began to develop a “woe is me” attitude. After a Super Bowl type event where he saw the Lord work in a mighty way, Elijah was now delegated to praying to an invisible God. And just as non-Super Bowl commercials have a tendency to bore us, Elijah began to get pretty dissatisfied with his relationship with the Father.

It’s at that time that the Lord came to Elijah and said, “…Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by” (1 Kings 19:11, NIV).

“Here we go!” Elijah must have been thinking to himself. “I finally get to get back to seeing the Lord Almighty display His true power in my life just as I did when He defeated the prophets of Baal through me.” But that’s not how God chose to reveal Himself to Elijah.

Instead, as 1 Kings 19:11-12 (NIV) describes the scene, “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire….”

At this point Elijah had to be confused. God had just promised to reveal Himself to Elijah and yet, despite all of this commotion going on around him, God was nowhere to be found. Elijah was looking for the Lord to reveal Himself to him in another huge event just as He had on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. But rather than revealing Himself through another earth-shattering occurrence, God chose to make Himself known to Elijah through“… a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12, NIV).

Are you having a difficult time seeing God move or hearing from Him through His Word like you did at a different season in your life? Let the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 18-19 give you courage. While the Lord certainly blesses us with times of great spiritual victory and triumph (we often describe this as a spiritual high) the majority of our lives are not lived on that spiritual mountain peak but on level planes.

So don’t fret the way Elijah did when he couldn’t quite see God in the same display of power that He did on Mount Carmel  in 1 Kings 18. Take heart knowing that God is still with you, He is still, “…the Holy One living among you” (Hosea 11:9, NIV). The Enemy, Satan, will try to convince you that God has left you or that it is your fault that you don’t feel Him the way you once did. But God promises that, “…[He] will never leave [us] or forsake [us]” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV) and warns us not to rely simply on our emotions regarding our relationship with Him because, “The heart is deceitfully above all things…” (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV). Our relationship with the Lord should be based on truth rather than emotion.

So the next time you step off the spiritual mountain back to a regular routine, don’t fall for the Super Bowl Effect by trying to “fast-forward” through life until you reach that next spiritual high—know that the Lord is, “…with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NIV).

 

“Be still and know that I am God”

– Psalms 46:10 (NIV)

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©Grant Gaines 2013

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