Today, we have a lesson in God’s miraculous provision when we trust him enough to offer what we already have. God’s math doesn’t make sense, but will you open your hands so you can live in the divine provision of an unlimited God? It’s hard to fill a closed hand, my sister. It’s time to open your hand, open your mind, and open your heart. God has some filling to do!
Last week, we ended with episode #1873, “God Will Provide”. We read in 1 Kings 17 how God called Elijah away to a safe place by a brook during a drought. There, God kept the water flowing and a raven bringing him food every morning and evening. Elijah learned trained dependence and trained obedience. Elijah couldn’t make the raven deliver food, he had to depend on God for that. Elijah couldn’t predict how long that little brook would still have water, he had to be obedient to stay until God told him to leave.
He was in training, just like you and I are in training. We’re learning to be dependent on God with these circumstances we can’t control. We’re learning to be obedient to God with these predicaments we can’t predict.
Then, God allows the brook to dry up in his divine timing because it’s time for Elijah to go to his next divine encounter. Someone needs to hear today that this thing you’ve been counting on has come to an end because God says it’s time to move now. It’s not a punishment, nor is it a dead end. It’s simply a prompting to go where God is leading you next because staying here is not his best for you.
I’ve learned to pray for closed doors so I keep moving down the hallway to God’s best door for me. I no longer want to settle for what my fickle feelings want in the moment. I don’t want to stay here just because it’s easy or familiar, all while sacrificing God’s better plan for me, even if it’s harder. Hey, if it’s hard, God will strengthen you for it. Stop avoiding hard. It’s time to step in faith toward the hard move you’re being prompted to make. When the brook dries up, where is God telling you to go next?
God said to Elijah in 1 Kings 17, verse 8, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” Now that makes absolutely no sense. God, you’ve been hand feeding me in miraculous ways here at this brook every morning and every night. Why can’t we just stay here. You have the power to keep that brook flowing, why won’t you just sustain it longer? A widow is the poorest of all people, and that’s who you want me to ask for food? Lord, you’re not making sense here!
The distance from the dried up brook to this specific village God has said to go to was 85 miles … on foot … in a drought … without a snack pack and a 40 ounce water bottle. And remember, there are people who want to kill Elijah because he’s the one who announced the drought, so he was blamed for it. The argument for staying right where he was must have been strong. But, his trained dependence and trained obedience is kicking in, and he goes.
Verse 10-12, “So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, ‘Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?’ As she was going to get it, he called to her, ‘Bring me a bite of bread, too.’ But she said, ‘I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.'”
Dang. Talk about barking up the wrong tree. He had just asked this woman for the very last of what she had.