Tested in Blessing

For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry . . . (1 Kings 17:16)

Is this how God rewards obedience?

Elijah had hidden himself by the brook because that’s where God told him to go. It was neither a place nor plan of his own choosing. Hiding by the brook was an act of obedience. And now the brook was dry.

We would like to think that obedience leads to reward. What we see in Elijah is that obedience simply prepares us for the next act of obedience. God used the dry brook to send the prophet to Zarephath in the pagan region of Sidon – not a popular destination for a Hebrew prophet.

Whereas Elijah had been fed by ravens by the Kerith Ravine, a widow would feed him in Zarephath. As promised, Elijah met a widow at the gates of the town. When he asked her for a piece of bread she made it clear to Elijah that she had enough for one meal, and that meal would be for her and her son. After that they would likely die soon.

But God spoke through the prophet, inviting an act of trust on the part of this widow. She used her meager supply of flour and oil and fed Elijah first. Seeing a miracle sometimes means taking a risk. Having used what she had to feed Elijah this widow discovered a fresh supply of oil and flour every day.

It is striking that some of the best known stories in the Bible are bread stories

As Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness, God provided bread from heaven every morning. Jesus replicated God’s gift of wilderness manna when he fed a multitude with a few loaves of bread and some fish (John 6:11-12). Later Jesus would say that he himself was the bread of life, the bread that comes from heaven and gives life to all people (John 6:35).

And then there’s Elijah and the widow discovering the daily deposit of oil and flour.

The wilderness manna, the oil and flour, the multitudes fed with fishes and loaves: we naturally regard these things as gifts from God, great blessings that speak of God’s love and grace. But in Deuteronomy 8 we learn that often God uses blessings to test us. "Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands." (Deut. 8:2-3).

God does not test us solely in trouble and affliction. Testing does not come strictly in the form of loss and grief, illness and death, physical pain and mental distress. Such things test us, to be sure – but just as often God tests us in blessing.

Blessings and gifts reveal the posture of our heart as much as suffering does.

When we wake up every morning and find fresh oil and flour, the test is this: will we love the oil and flour? Will we depend on bread? Or will we love the God who meets us daily with more grace and sustains us in wilderness places?

How have you been blessed today – and what does the blessing show you about the affections of your heart and the object of your hope?

Prayer:
“Break thou the bread of life, Dear Lord, to me; As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea; Beyond the sacred page I seek the Lord; My Spirit pants for thee, O Living Word” (Break Thou the Bread of Life, The Hymnbook, p. 219)

When the Brook Dries Up

“As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1 ESV).

Running from a fight had never been his style.

Hiding was never his preferred strategy for dealing with trouble. Hesitation and reticence were alien to him. Once given a word to speak for God, Elijah itched to speak it like a thoroughbred being held back at the start-line of a race.

Thus his terse message to Ahab: “it will not rain until I say so.” The moment was confrontational. Elijah was going head to head with Israel’s faithless King and that King’s false god. Few Kings will tolerate that kind of thing; they will not lose face when treated with shameless disrespect.

So God told Elijah to hide in a ravine on the east side of the Jordan River. Elijah was to stay there, out of the way, removed from the action. He had said what needed to be said. God would take it from here until further notice. In the meantime, the prophet would survive by drinking water from the brook and being fed daily by ravens.

For a while the water in the Kerith ravine ran freely and wide. Elijah drank at will, quenching his thirst and washing down the food that came by ravens every morning and evening. But soon the flow of water narrowed. As God kept his word and confirmed Elijah’s message, the daily supply of water diminished to a trickle. One day, even that had stopped.

The brook dried up.

Many of us live with an unspoken rule, a silent expectation. We quietly carry the conviction that being in the center of God’s will is a “safe” place to be.

We assume that if we will be obedient to what God commands and seek to live life in a way that pleases God, we will somehow dodge the varied troubles that are visited upon the disobedient and the self-indulgent.

We claim exemptions: We will seek to know God’s will and live in it, and the cancer will not find us or those we love. The accident will miss us. The lay-offs will not impact us. We may not be exactly where we want to be. Life won’t be picture perfect. But, like Elijah, we will be fed daily and drink freely from the brook.

Sometimes, however, the brook dries up. Even for bold prophets and ordinary faithful people, the stream narrows to a sliver and then stops altogether.

The story of Elijah reminds us that God wills our good in the midst of circumstances we would choose to avoid. God is at purposefully at work as we wait by the diminishing brook. God used deprivation in one place to move the prophet to a new place where grace is discovered anew. God still works that way.

We will keep company with Elijah this week and discover that when the brook dries up God is still present. Faith does not mean that we live our days claiming exemptions. Rather, we wake up each day recognizing our need for grace.

Brooks and creeks diminish. God’s faithfulness doesn’t.

Prayer:
Too often, Lord God, our faith grows small as we see the brook running dry. We feel cheated or deceived. Teach us through the prophet Elijah to look to you rather than flowing streams, whether of water or money, good fortune or good health. In the coming days of this year accomplish your purposes for us, reminding us that you work for our good in all things. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.