"So Elijah did as the Lord had told him and camped beside Kerith Brook. The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. But after a while, the brook dried up.....Then the Lord said to Elijah, 'Go and live in the village of Zarephath......there is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions.' So he went to Zarephath." I Kings 17:5-10...."(He) is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all we ask or think according to the power at work within us." Ephesians 3:20....."He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him (Jesus Christ) since He always lives to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25
To be God's man or woman is to not be your own. To be His means we have been bought with a price....the blood and life of Christ. We are no longer our own. A question for us then is, are we still trying to be? Elijah was a man given great power and anointing by the Father. He told the evil King Ahab that there would be no rain in the land of Israel until Elijah commanded it. Ahab's response was to seek his death. God then directed him to go and live by a brook in the wilderness, and trust in His provision through ravens that the Father would use to feed him. Now, picture that for ourselves. How would we respond to such direction? Told to go to a nowhere place, live by a brook and wait for ravens, who are not particularly attractive creatures, to supply our food. A great challenge to our trust and obedience, yet Elijah obeyed. Then, in the very place that the Lord had put him, the brook dried up. What would Elijah do? I believe that he had the power to speak it, and the rain would come, and the brook again flow. Yet he didn't. His voice was not his own. He stayed at the brook as it grew more and more dry. How long he stayed there we don't know, but we do know that he did not move from it until He heard the Lord's word to go. He didn't try to manufacture His own deliverance or provision. He obeyed. He trusted. He waited. He did not listen to his own voice or reason, but for the Father's leading. Would we have? Would you? Eventually, His word came to go to Zarephath, and Elijah, who had witnessed the miraculous provison of God at the brook, would do so again through the life of an impoverished widow who had nothing. If it made little sense to go Kerith Brook, it made even less to go to Zarephath. Yet he obeyed and he trusted. God, who had been at the brook, would also be in Zarephath. So it will always be. At every dried up brook, and we will have them in this life walk, He will have for us a Zarephath. For all who sit at that brook today, we need to believe, know, and trust that this is so...for it is.
As I contemplated this writing, He brought to mind those wonderful truths from Ephesians 3 and Hebrews 7. He calls us to believe that He will do exceeding abundantly beyond all we could ask or think. That means that no matter how high, wide, or deep our expectation of His work in our lives, He will go beyond it. Infinitely beyond. That when He saves, He saves to the uttermost....and beyond. His salvation is only limited by our willingness and capacity to receive it. It is salvation that will fill every area of our lives, of our being. When we live in this truth, no dried up brook, no setback, no failure, nor all the power of hell that comes against us can stop Him from leading us from that place to Zarephath. The Christ who led us to brook, will lead us to Zarephath, and beyond. He who showed Himself all powerful at the brook, will do so at Zarephath, and every other place He leads us in journey into the depths of eternity.
Has your brook dried up? Are you tempted to step out in your own strength and understanding, or will you wait upon Him. He will not leave you, or me at the dried up brook. He will take us to Zarephath, but it must be at His leading and initiative, and not ours. Can we trust? Can we wait? Will we obey? Jesus told His disciples that He had "food" to eat that they didn't know about. It was the "bread" of His Father's life. That food is available to all who are His and no dry brook or impoverished place can keep it from us. He saves to the uttermost. Will we allow Him to do so in and with us?
Blessings,
Pastor O
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