Lesson from Elijah's Prayer: Take Heed What You Ask For

And he requested for himself that he might die.

 1 Kings 19:4

"IT was a remarkable thing that the man who was never to die, for whom God had ordained an infinitely better lot, the man who should

be carried to heaven in a chariot of fire, and be translated, that he should not see death—should thus pray, Let me die, I am no better than my fathers. (1 Kings 19:4)

Strange was it that the lion-hearted Elijah should be so depressed by Jezebel's threat as to ask to die, and blessedly kind was it on the part of our heavenly Father that He did not take His desponding servant at his word.

--There is a limit to the doctrine of the prayer of faith. 

--We are not to expect that God will give us everything we choose to ask for. 

--We know that we sometimes ask, and do not receive, because we ask amiss. 

If we ask for that which is not promised—if we run counter to the spirit which the Lord would have us cultivate—if we ask contrary to His will, or to the decrees of His providence—if we ask merely for the gratification of our own ease, and without an eye to His glory, we must not expect that we shall receive.

Be then, dear reader,
much in prayer,
and make this evening a season of earnest intercession, but take heed what you ask."
Charles Spurgeon