Heart Tracks - True Worship

      Have you ever found yourself, like Elijah, at the brook Cherith?  Elijah, sent there after the Lord had proclaimed there would be no more rain in the land, was cared for by the Father, feeding him and refreshing him by the brook called Cherith.  Surely Elijah not only treasured this time, but most especially the brook and what it brought to him.  Yet, in I Kings 17:7, we're told that, "the brook dried up, for there was no rain in the land."  Everything now changed for him.  The place of rest, peace, and renewal, and blessing, was gone.  The brook had dried up.  What would he do?  What will you and I do should the brook dry up?  Perhaps it's dried up now.

     I have found myself most often in life, treasuring the brook more than I treasured Him.  I could worship Him at the brook, but when the brook dried up, and all brooks of this life eventually do, I found my worship of Him tended to dry up as well.  Rarely, if ever, could I bring myself to see or admit that I worshiped the brook more than I worshiped Him.  When it was gone, I was devastated, angry, and even accusing of Him.  I loved the brook, and whether I could see it or not, saw it, and not Him as my Source.  Has the same ever happened to you?  Is it happening now?
     I've a good friend who related recently how he had been mourning the passing of time in his ministry, thinking of the many great things the Lord had done in it, and how now, in what he calls, as Paul did, "the time of his departure," feels a kind of lack.  His brook had dried up.  Yet he said that in the midst of the mourning he heard the voice of the Father speak into his heart saying, "I am your Home."  He heard Him tell him that it was not his past, future or present that was the his source or his end, but the Father Himself.  That he could worship him, find wholeness in Him, fulfillment, and joy, because it was His presence, not the brook, that gave life.  Every blessing in this life will eventually dry up in some way, every brook we depend on it will eventually run dry, but He who is the Source of all the bread and water of life never will.  Every brook Cherith, no matter how beautiful, is not meant, was never meant to be our home, our dwelling place.  He, and He alone is.  So, is He?
     Watchman Nee relates the story of Abraham being told by God to go to Mount Moriah to worship Him, and to there sacrifice his only son, Isaac, his promised and long awaited son.  Nee says he made no protest, but simply went to worship.  He trusted, and he obeyed.  He would yield what he treasured most to the One who gave him.  Nee said that this was true worship, "to let go to God all His gifts to us, all our rich experiences, and all our hopes in Him, and to find unqualified joy in God Himself."  Not in the brook, not even in the son, but in God Himself.  The Father did not take Isaac, and He didn't keep Elijah at the dried up brook, but led him to another place, a deeper place in Him.  The place of worship.  Not dependent on the brook, or the person, or the blessing, but upon Him.  Can He lead you and I to such a place as well?  Has our brook dried up?  If so, what has that done to our life, our walk, and our love of Him?  Can we only worship and love Him where the brook flows, or, can we do so even when all has dried up, because we, as Nee said, have found our full joy in Him, our Source, the brook that can never dry up.

Blessings,
Pastor O