More Encouragement

I've been studying about Elijah lately and it was so encouraging that I wanted to share it with you. The story begins in 1 Kings 17 with Elijah confronting King Ahab and telling him that there'd be no rain for the next 3 years. He said there'd not only be no rain, but that there wouldn't even be any dew on the ground for all that time, and that the rain would not come again until he said it would. Of course this would cause a horrible drought, which would in turn cause a horrible famine throughout the land. As soon as he delivered the message from the Lord, the Lord told him to go to a specific place by a brook where He had arranged for the ravens to bring him food.

One of the first things I noticed in the story was that the Lord didn't give Elijah a 3 year plan. Instead, He gave him simple one step directions with enough information to carry out those instructions. He told him to go tell the King what He'd said, and it wasn't until after He'd given the King the message that God then told him where to go next. And that was important for Elijah because the King didn't like what he'd been told and as soon as he gathered his wits about him, he wanted to kill Elijah.

So Elijah went to the area the Lord had told him too and as promised, the Lord had ravens provide food for him each day. Again we see that Elijah was provided for daily...not for weeks or months or years in advance. There wasn't a stockpile of food waiting or him either. Nor was he given a nice palace to live in and a big river to get his water from. Instead he had to camp out and make do with a small brook of water that could dry up at any time. I say, "make do", yet Elijah always had more then enough to eat and drink. He was warm when it was cold and cool when it was hot. The point being that God didn't provide him with abundance so that he wouldn't be tempted to rest, or count on the gifts or blessings, but instead would rest, count on, Him.

That's one of the tendencies of our sin nature...to begin to rely on the blessing instead of on the giver of the blessing. Like our pay checks -regardless of where they come from such as our job, unemployment, social security, or whatever, we tend to count on them; rely on them. We forget that our boss, the government or whoever, isn't really the one providing those checks - God is! When God does give us an abundance, we tend to forget Him. We don't need Him then, or so we think. Such as when we have a good secure job and a regular pay check that enables us to pay our bills and have some left over. After a very short time, we forget that this is a blessing directly from God. We tend to consider our pay check, and even our job, as something we've earned and that we deserve instead. While we may still pray and read our bibles, we certainly don't spend time in heartfelt prayer pleading with God, because we don't see any need to do so. We see ourselves as being our own provision with our safe secure job and steady pay check. At least we do till they stop for some reason. When that happens, after we complain and gripe about it, we'll finally turn to God and start pleading with Him in prayer for help. At some point then, we hopefully realize that our jobs and pay checks had become false gods for us, and repent.

To prevent this from happening with Elijah, God didn't give him an abundance. The Lord kept things so that Elijah would have to constantly rely on Him. It was part of his training for the job the Lord had for him in the future. Because we know the story, we know that Elijah is going to do some really awesome miracles; miracles that had never been done before and as big and as profuse as hadn't been seen since the exodus. Elijah needed to grow in faith In order to do things, (which of course he knew nothing about) and keeping Elijah dependent on Him that way, is what caused his faith to grow.

I see this in my own life right now. I'm dependent on God for everything just like Elijah is. The false gods have been kicked out and I've repented of them. Now I'm not just trying to get through one day at a time, instead I'm learning to enjoy living a day at a time with the Lord as my provision. I'm learning to literally rest in Him, the way Elijah learned to do at that brook. To abide in Him every day knowing that my needs will be met and that all I have to do is trust and obey.

Funny isn't it? All we ever have to do is trust and obey, yet we let our lives get so cluttered with "stuff" that we forget. So the Lord brings us back to the beginning once again. Remember that verse, "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord"? Just as the Lord had big plans for Elijah and was preparing him so he'd be able to handle them, so He's also preparing us for our future, and in the same way. I have a feeling that He's got some pretty big plans for us too!