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Delving into these chapters, we’re going to learn a monumental amount about an unlikely hero, Elijah, who made an indelible mark on time and eternity nearly 3000 years ago. As we dissect our opening text (1 Kings 17: 1-7), observe first that Elijah, whose name means “Jehovah is my God,” was normal– someone just like us, “a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17). J.B Phillips renders this, “a man as human as we are,” which means he was just your average Joe, a run-of-the--mill young man born and raised in the mountains of Gilead, east of the Jordan river. He is called the Tishbite because of his hometown of Tishbe, meaning “a converter,” which certainly describes his storied life and ministry. Clearly, a host of God’s choice servants experienced unassuming upbringings. David, the youngest, seemed the least likely of Jesse’s sons to become Israel’s next king. Most of the disciples were uneducated, small-town men known more for the calluses on their hands than their standing in the community. And what about Jesus, born in a stable, placed in a manger and raised in a wide spot in the road? Yet, as God in the flesh, He would go on to become the central figure in all of time and eternity. As the Bible says, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised things God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). Billy Graham was just a normal kid who grew up on a dairy farm outside Charlotte, N.C. Never earning more than a bachelor’s degree, he went on to

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