Sometime later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 1 Kings 17:7
Elijah, the Tishbite, that great and fierce defender of
Yahweh from Tishbe in Gilead (v. 1),
boldly declared to King Ahab that there would be a severe drought in the land
for a few years. Unless he said so, not even dew would appear (v:1). Knowing how vulnerable this would make
Elijah, God instructed him to go and hide in the
Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan (v. 3). He would be provided with meat and
bread by a raven, a bird normally associated with death and dark omens. He was
told to drink water from the brook. Apparently it worked well for months
and could have continued, but due to the prolonged drought “the brook dried
up”( v. 7). The raven would still bring food but Elijah needed some liquid to
“wash it down”. The water God had provided was finished.
The thought of Divine
provision dwindling, being in short supply, and actually drying up, sounds
blasphemous, and yet that is exactly what happened to Elijah. God’s children and servants
can occasionally face challenges, and can run into hard times even as they are
obedient to God. It is not only shortcomings that land us into difficulties.
The fact is that when the brook dries up God wants us to move on.
I suggest that many of us
“die” where we are. “Die” here does not
necessarily mean physical death. We can also “die” intellectually, spiritually,
financially, and emotionally. We die because God wants us to move on to a new
location, but we have become so comfortable where we are and with what we have
achieved and received, that although the flow of blessing is dwindling or has
dried up we continue to plod along, hurting ourselves and others around us.
Yes! We can be in a place where God
wants us to be and the time comes when God tells us to move on because there is
nothing more there for us. We must know when God is telling us to move on. It is not that we are done or that God is
done with us, but that God is done with us in that location. What God wanted us
to do has been done.
Have you ever wondered why
God sent Elijah to a brook that God knew would eventually dry up? Have you?
Well, I have. I have wondered why you obey God, and things that were going well
gradually began to get worse. I have wondered why obedient servants come under
all kinds of pressure and suffering, why pressures build up and problems
develop without any obvious or immediate solutions. Did you wonder why and
think, “What’s going on here? Why is my world falling apart?” It may be that
God is refining and transforming you because God is about to do something
spectacular in your life. What was in
store for Elijah? Did you say Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18:20-40)? Yes!
Before Elijah could stand
on Mt. Carmel, he needed to sit by the brook. Yes! That’s it! For us to handle the Mt. Carmels of our lives
it is essential for the maturing experiences of the “Kerith Brooks” of life to
occur. The Kerith Brooks are tests of life. These are times when everything
seems to dry up. Such times will purify, build, and teach us to trust in the
Lord with all of our hearts and not to lean on our own understandings. We
experience peaceful fruits of righteousness after discipline and experiences
that are sorrowful (Heb. 12:11).
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