April, 2007
What Do You Do When Your Brook Dries Up?
I Kings 17:1-7
INTRODUCTION: It is said that “rough spirits are called to rough services.” Elijah was such a person--extroverted, impatient, and a rugged individualist who was not afraid to stand up to King Ahab and deliver even the harshest prophecy from the Lord. When Elijah spoke these words to Ahab, he knew that his life would be affected too. He would be living in the same drought-stricken land as all the other people. His only priority was to speak the word of prophecy that the Lord had given him. What was he to do?
Once the word was spoken, Elijah heard from God. The Lord directed him to go eastward and stop at the brook Cherith, to hide, and to drink from the brook. The ravens would bring food. When Elijah arrived there, he found himself in an isolated place with no work to do and no prophecies to give. True, there was plenty of water, and twice a day the ravens brought meat and bread. Why would God take Elijah, a restless and impatient man, to a place of complete solitude? One reason was to keep him out of King Ahab’s way for awhile, but more importantly to teach him some valuable lessons. He may have needed to become a more humble servant of the Lord. Earlier he may have preferred some other kind of sandwiches, served by someone other than these unusual caterers. It may have been that the Lord wanted to soften his rough characteristics a little bit before He took him to the next stage. God may have allowed extra time for this prophet to pray and to grow spiritually. As time went on, however, he got used to the faithful and constant food supply and began to settle down to his daily routine. Just about that time, the brook dried up. Now what?
APPLICATION: What do you do when your brook dries up? Most of us immediately wonder if we have missed God’s will when adverse circumstances come our way. We go over the details and say, “I was so sure I heard from God. Maybe I missed Him.” We continue to stew and question. What should we do? There are three things we can do.
1. Wait for a word from the Lord--Scripture says that the word of the Lord came to Elijah. The first thing we need to realize is that we are not necessarily out of God’s will when the brook dries up. We need to look to God first of all to see what he wants us to do next. Elijah heard from the Lord, and we can too. The word to him was, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath.”
Elijah had clearly heard God direct him to the brook in the first place. You can think of times when you felt God’s direction to take a new job or buy a house--start on some kind of new venture and things just seemed to unfold very smoothly at first. Then something happened. Things turned sour. One thing after another went wrong. This is the time we begin to wonder if we missed God, if we made the wrong decision. “Maybe I have taken the wrong job, married the wrong person,” we say. Can your brook dry up and you be right in the center of God’s will? I think it can. Sometimes God has to stir up our nest or we would sit at the brook forever. Elijah had obeyed God when he told him to get out of town for awhile and get away from Ahab. God didn’t tell him how long he would be staying at the brook Cherith. But Elijah obeyed the Lord and went there. He made a decision based on the information he had at the time. He thought it was God telling him to go there even if it was a new and different experience for him to be living in an isolated place with birds serving him his meals. He adjusted to this and began to “settle in.” Just then the brook dried up. The Lord wanted him to be safe from Ahab and fairly comfortable there, but it was only temporary. At first the waiting process until he heard that Word from the Lord may have been difficult for this impatient man.
Sometimes we feel that our situations are permanent--both good ones and bad ones--and that once we make a decision that’s the way it will be forever. We especially think this when it becomes a bad situation--hating our jobs or becoming dissatisfied with our life in general. When our brook dries up, it is time to wait on the Lord rather than to make some hasty, ill-advised decision. Our tendency is to fret and stew and question, “Why is this happening to me? Where did I go wrong? What am I going to do now? Is God punishing me?” We use up our energy going over and over the problems--but there is a better way. The Psalmist seemed to know the secret of waiting on the Lord better than we do. Here are some Scriptures that apply to us today as well:
Psalm 27:14 “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say on the Lord.”
Psalm 40:1 “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.”
We can wait on the Lord even in our dry brook situations, even when we don’t think that God hears our prayers or even knows what is going on in our life. How do we do this? Keep praying, keep coming to church, keep reading your Bible. Establish a consistent pattern of waiting on God in the good times and you will be more likely to keep it up in the bad times.
What is the purpose of waiting? Why not just do something to DO something?
Scripture says that:
a. Waiting produces some patience in us. In our society we get extremely impatient when we have to wait in lines or in traffic.
James 1:4 says, “but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire; wanting nothing.”
Let patience do its work in you as you wait upon the Lord to change situations. Many times things do not happen overnight. It takes time for answers to come. They don’t happen overnight but will happen in due season. Scripture says we will “reap if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9).
Hebrews 10:36 says, “For ye have need of patience that after having done the will of God ye might receive the promise.
b. Waiting before God renews our strength. When a situation has frazzled us, let us wait upon the Lord for his renewal and experience a new sense of his presence.
Isaiah 40:31 “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall walk and not be weary, they shall run and not faint.”
Elijah waited until he heard a word from the Lord. Once the Word came to move, Elijah did not hesitate to do so.
2. Arise and Go--When our brook dries up, we often become immobilized from taking any action because of fear and doubt. This often causes us to be depressed. We fret and stew, repeating our tale of woe to anyone who comes along. This keeps us from getting to our “Zarephath” once the word of the Lord comes. We, too, often become paralyzed from doing anything that will help us. So we sit and stew. Elijah had to “arise” and begin to step out in faith one step at a time. Even at this point the only had limited information to go on, but this word from the Lord was enough to get him started.
What will help us in our “arising and going?” Scripture teaches us two basic things here.
Guidance and Faith. We have the promise of the Lord’s guidance as we go and we also have been given the faith to believe that the Lord is with us. Elijah did not have a full-blown plan, but he knew he was to arise and go to Zarephath.
If the brook had not dried up, he wouldn’t have been interested in going to Zarephath. But the word of the Lord came to him, and it was enough guidance to get him started in the right direction. The Lord won’t usually give us more direction until we pay attention to the first word. What are you doing about the first word He is telling you?
If we are doing nothing, we will probably continue to sit by our dried up brook. If we don’t pay attention to the first word, why would we need the second word?
How can we be sure of God’s guidance for us?
Scripture tells us:
Psalm 32:8 “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye.”
Psalm 48:14 “For this God is our God forever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.”
Isaiah 30:21 “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left.”
Isaiah 48:17 “thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the Lord thy God which teaches thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.”
When we do all we know to do and have asked the Lord for His guidance, then when it comes we must take the step of faith to arise and go based on that knowledge. We probably won’t be sure 100%. We may still have a lot of “what ifs” and it still be God speaking to us. Sometimes we wait until we are 100% sure on things and we find we are still sitting by the brook. Elijah didn’t have 100% certainty, but he had a word from the Lord in order to get him to move away from the dried up brook. Let us have enough faith in what God is trying to tell us to “arise and go” knowing that He has promised to guide us and instruct us as we go.
3. He obeyed the directions of the Lord--He arose and went in spite of the circumstances. He did not let a dried up brook concern him. When our jobs dry up, when problems come, health breaks down, or any number of disasters of life come our way, we can hear a word from the Lord and obey that word, moving on in our Christian experience.
Why are we so slow to obey the Lord at times? One reason may be fear of the unknown. Perhaps this fear stems from not knowing the Lord well enough to have complete confidence in His ability to take care of us and to guide us. We instead think that God is trying to “trip us up” at every wrong turn we make or trying to “punish us.” God is not out to “get you.”
Can we learn to be quicker about obeying God’s direction because we know that He is not going to do things to harm us.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Another reason that I believe we are slow to obey the Lord is because we would rather do our own thing. We feel at times like the singer who said, “I did it my way.” Often “our way” is in direct conflict with God’s way. Elijah arose and went to Zaraphath. He obeyed the word of the Lord quickly once it came to him.
Have you ever had the Lord tell you to help someone financially and a specific amount stands out in your mind? It’s the Lord saying to you, “Give_______$100.00” and you say, “Lord, maybe he doesn’t need $100.00, maybe he doesn’t deserve it. Maybe it’s not the Lord telling me to this--maybe it’s just me…” and you argue with yourself about it. When it happens, learn to write the check out and obey quickly. When we are quick to obey, we have a peace settle over us once we do it.
Elijah quickly arose and headed toward Zarephath. Until we obey at the first directive, we can’t move on to the next. Additional information comes as we move out in faith. This is exactly what happened in Elijah’s situation. He could have dried up and blown away down there by that brook had he not obeyed the word of the Lord and acted upon that limited information he had. Let us be quick to obey.
CONCLUSION: What does the Lord want us to learn from these lean times? One is that His provision for us is always constant and that He never fails us even when our brook dries up and hope is gone. Elijah renewed his dependency upon God, His Source, and humbled himself to receive from God however he chose to provide for him. He will do the same for you.
We can learn that we don’t have to have a “total plan” before we step out in faith and begin to “arise and go.” We can learn that when we wait upon the Lord that He will not fail to make His way known to us in due time. It is up to us to be quick to “Arise and Go” once we hear His direction.
We can learn that we can obey the Lord without hesitation because His way is better than ours and that we can know that He will not do anything to harm us in the process. We don’t have to fear the unknown because the Lord is guiding us in each step of the way and unfolding His plan before us. We don’t have to “go it alone.”
Let us pray:
