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1 Kings 19:3b-4 "When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough, Lord,' he said. 'Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.'"

Think

I have a gift. It is not one I am proud of, but it is real. I can walk into a room full of people and make every single one of them think they know me. I will shake hands. I will make eye contact. I will say something specific and personal to each one. "Great to see you. Love that shirt. How is the family? Tell your wife I said hello." I call it sprinkling pastor dust. And I am really, really good at it. People walk away feeling connected, feeling like they just had a real moment with their pastor. And they did. It was real. But it was not the whole picture. Because on the inside, I can be falling apart, and nobody in that room would ever know.

That is what isolation looks like when you are good at hiding it. It does not always look like a cave in the wilderness. Sometimes it looks like a crowded room where everyone thinks they know you but nobody actually does. We are only as sick as our secrets. And the sickest people in the room are often the ones shaking the most hands.

Elijah was good at performing, too. He had just performed the greatest one-man show in Old Testament history on Mount Carmel. Fire from heaven. Eight hundred and fifty opponents. A nation watching. But look at what he does in verse 3: "He left his servant there." He dropped the only person who was still with him. He, himself, the text says, emphasizing the aloneness, "went a day's journey into the wilderness." The Hebrew puts a spotlight on that phrase. He himself. Solo. Party of one.

Only room for one under a broom tree. Have you ever noticed that? The broom bush is a scrubby little desert plant, barely big enough to shade one person. Elijah chose a spot designed for isolation. He did not stumble into loneliness. He engineered it. He left his support system, walked into the desert, found the smallest, most solitary shelter available, and sat down underneath it.

We do the same thing. When depression hits, when anxiety wraps its arms around us, our first instinct is to pull away from exactly the people and places that could help us. We stop going to the group. We stop answering the phone. We stop showing up at church. We think we are protecting ourselves, but we are actually starving ourselves. Depression thrives in isolation the way mold thrives in darkness. Cut off the air and the light, and it will take over everything.

And then comes the comparison game. Look at what Elijah prays: "I am no better than my ancestors." Who is keeping score? Who asked him to compare himself to Abraham, Moses, or Samuel? Nobody. But that is what self-pity does. It pulls out a scoreboard that God never hung up and starts measuring you against people whose story has nothing to do with yours. I have said it before and I will say it again: every time you compare yourself to someone else, you are making a mockery of God's creative genius. He did not make you to be them. He made you to be you. But you cannot see that clearly from underneath a broom tree.

Social media has become the modern broom tree. You are sitting there scrolling, feeling miserable about your life, and every post is someone else's highlight reel. Somebody just got the promotion. Somebody just bought the house. Somebody's marriage looks perfect and their kids look like catalog models. And you are sitting there thinking, "They get to drive that, and I am stuck under this broom tree." But you are comparing your behind-the-scenes footage to their opening night. You are comparing your chapter three to their chapter twenty. And the comparison is a lie every single time.

A couple of summers ago, a couple of friends took me to the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula. We were following some local guides down a narrow trail, and one of the guys in our group hit quicksand. Legitimate quicksand. He started sinking fast. Another friend just stood there and watched. He was not about to step into that mess. Thankfully, the guy in the quicksand grabbed a mangrove root and pulled himself out. Self-pity is a lot like that quicksand. You start sinking into it slowly, and before you know it, you are up to your chest. But God always provides a mangrove root. He always provides a way of escape. The question is whether you will reach for it or keep sinking.

The psalmist understood the pull of the broom tree. Psalm 42:5 says, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Notice the psalmist is talking to himself. He is preaching to his own soul. He is interrupting his own spiral. That is what you have to do when you find yourself under the broom tree. You have to stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself. Remind yourself of what is true. Remind yourself of who God is. Interrupt the lie with the truth.

Elijah could not see any of this from under that bush. The shade was too small, the despair too heavy, the isolation too complete. But even sitting there, begging God to take his life, he was not out of God's reach. God was not done with Elijah. Not even close. The broom tree was a rest stop, not a finish line. And if you are sitting under one today, I want you to know the same thing. Your story is not over. Get out from under the bush. Reach for the root. And whatever you do, do not drop your last friend at the city limits.

Apply

Break the isolation – If you have been pulling away from people, stop the drift today. Text one person you trust and tell them how you are actually doing. Not the pastor-dust version. The real version. Isolation feeds the lie. Connection starves it.

Pray

Lord, I confess that my first instinct when I am hurting is to hide. I pull away from the people who love me and from the church that can support me. Forgive me for engineering my own isolation. Give me the courage to reach out, to be honest, and to let someone in. I do not want to stay under the broom tree. In Jesus' name. Amen.