1 Kings 17:1-7 – Getting Through Dry Spells
Somebody put together a list called, “You Know it’s Going to be a Bad Day When…” These are a few of those indications. You know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up face down on the pavement. When you call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold. When you see a “60 Minutes” news team waiting in your office. When your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles. When you turn on the news and they’re showing emergency routes out of the city. When your twin sister forgot your birthday. When your boss tells you not to bother to take off your coat. When the bird singing outside your window is a buzzard. When your income tax check bounces. When you put both contact lenses in the same eye. Or, when your car horn gets stuck when you’re driving and you wind up behind a group of Hell’s Angels bikers.
You know, we all get those days from time to time. The problem comes when the days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, and even when the months turn into years. That’s when things get discouraging. A man in my church in Maine used to say: “My mother always told me there would be days like this, but she didn’t say they’d come in bunches like bananas!”
And when that much discouragement comes, it starts to take its toll on our faith. Often our faith begins to suffer. Not THE faith, but OUR faith. We begin to waver. We begin to wonder. And our faith feels like it’s in a drought. I remember one girl on Grand Manan who really stumbled in her faith after a guy just a couple of years older than her was killed in a car accident. That death just changed her, and her faith went dry.
Well, we’re not the first generation of believers to struggle with dryness in the faith. Today we begin a series on Elijah, my favorite Bible personality, from the OT book of 1 Kings. Hopefully, getting a glimpse of his life of faith will encourage us in ours.
Elijah may have been a hero of the faith, perhaps even looking supernatural. But the book of James, in the NT, tells us that he “was a man just like us.” That is, he was human. He wasn’t perfect. He had flaws. Over the next few weeks we’ll see that. But he also had a faith that can inspire us. And the first glimpse we get of Elijah is in 1 Kings 17, just as a drought – no rain and no dew – is about to hit Israel.
By the time Elijah entered the scene, the Promised Land had been divided. That is, the 12 tribes had had a falling out. Two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) settled in the south with their own king (Asa) and capital (Jerusalem), and the remaining ten tribes in the north with their own king (Ahab) and capital (Samaria). It was to this northern group that Elijah preached. 1 Kings 17:1-7.
So we see that Elijah, the man of God, went to the evil King Ahab and said there would be no water in the land for years. Then, he took off and hid by a lonely brook, where he was able to drink the water, and was fed miraculously by ravens. Eventually though, because the whole land faced the drought, his brook dried up too. Now, he was in as bad a shape as the rest of the land. At least, that’s how it looked.
But even in the middle of this drought, Elijah was certainly not forgotten. God knew exactly what was going on, and how He would take care of Elijah. It’s good to remember that even when you go through dry times, God still sees you and loves you and has a plan for you, even if you don’t know it yet.
So why did God send a drought? Why was there a dry time? In the big picture, this was a punishment on the land because of the king. 1 Kings 16:30 says that Ahab did more evil than all the kings before him, and his wife Jezebel was probably the most wicked woman ever to live. And God sent the drought to punish the king and queen. Now, that sounds unfair to all the regular citizens of the land, but things really aren’t that much different. How many people pay for the sins and mistakes of political leaders today? For the sins and mistakes of spiritual leaders? I mean, it’s not even a leadership thing. Each one of us has gone through hard times because of other people. On the flip side, each one of us has made others suffer in some way because of our own sins and mistakes. None of us can point fingers here.
But as for Elijah, why was he suffering? Why was he going through a drought too? Why did his own brook dry up? Clearly, God had a lesson in store for him. Perhaps Elijah didn’t even know it at first. Maybe he thought God would see him through this without a problem. After all, he was being obedient. Bad things don’t happen to obedient people, right? No, that’s not right. Elijah was not being punished, but he was being trained. These 1st 7 verses of the chapter are a sort of boot camp for the rest of Elijah’s ministry. What Elijah went through, in his own personal dry spell, would help him to trust God for all the things in store for him later on.
Now, Elijah’s dry spell was a literal drought. But maybe you are going through a dry spell, too. Not literally, but figuratively, and certainly just as real. Maybe you feel as dry as the land Elijah lived in. Maybe God feels distant to you. Maybe you feel like your faith is barely hanging on. Maybe you long for the joy and purpose you had once. Maybe you wonder if God cares at all about your condition. Maybe you wonder if God hears you when you pray anymore, if He ever did.
Well, I want to encourage you today: you’re not alone. I think we all go through dry spells, some spells worse than others some people more often than others. But still, we all face the temptation to give up or give in when our faith isn’t as fiery as it once was. But, what Elijah learned during his drought, I think, will help you in yours too.
He learned to rely daily on God’s provisions. That is, he learned that God would meet whatever needs he had. The ravens brought meat and bread twice daily. This is supernatural. After all, ravens don’t feed their own chicks. But God met Elijah’s needs in an amazing way. What’s neat, is that God supplied Elijah’s needs naturally and supernaturally: with the brook and with the ravens. And which one gave out first? The natural one, the brook. Folks, the resources you see around you will run out a lot sooner than God will. We trust in ourselves, in others, in stuff. But when all that comes to an end, God still keeps giving. I understand, that in dry times, we tend to pull away from God. When things get hard, church attendance slips. When time gets short, prayer time gets left out. But when that happens, we pull away from the only source of strength we have. But don’t pull away. Don’t put God on the backburner, even if you don’t understand what’s happening to you. Don’t back off from the only true source of strength you have. Rely daily on Him.
Elijah also learned to trust in God’s wisdom. God rarely asks our approval about His will. Occasionally, He lets us decide, but only after we have agreed to do His will, no matter what it is. He requires we trust Him. He demands that if we call ourselves believers, we trust in His ways, and not on our own understanding. You see, for Elijah, the story doesn’t end at v7, with his own brook drying up. There’s more to the story, as we will see next week. And maybe you are where you can’t see past your own v7. But trust God – He knows what’s coming up next. Even if His commands don’t make sense right now, if it really is God’s voice, at some point they will make sense. But you have to hang on in your faith, believing that what God has asked you to do will be OK for you.
You see, He loves you more than you can ever know. And He really does want the best for you. His will for you is better than your own plans. But sometimes those plans aren’t always clear or visible. It’s times like that that you need to say: “I will keep trusting you, even if you seem far away or confusing to me.”
And this ties in to the last lesson: Elijah learned to wait on God’s timing. At the right time, God would provide an alternate source of food and water. But that meant that Elijah had to wait on Him for it. Even though the plans were foggy to him, God was indeed in control, and those plans would become clear at just the right time.
Waiting on God is sometimes so hard. It’s one thing to do His will. Since we are action people, that’s not really the hard part for believers who want to obey Him. But the wait is sometimes maddening. Waiting for His plans to unfold – ugh! Waiting for prayers to get answered. Waiting for our situation to change. Waiting for the medicine or therapy to make a difference. And confusion sweeps over our lives like dark clouds. Now, the Bible says that god is not the author of confusion. But on the other hand, He is not a calculator, just spitting out the answer as soon as we type in the question. And I’m sure Elijah asked the same questions we ask: “Doesn’t anybody understand? Why is this happening to me? How long is this going to keep going on?” And God says: “I will show you when you are ready. I could tell you the answer now, but you’re not ready to hear it. So don’t put your emotions in neutral. Be real. Don’t just cruise along. Be honest. But be trusting of me as well. I really do love You, and I want the best for you, and this trial will make you stronger. This silence will help you to listen better. This darkness will help you to see the Light. This dry spell will last only a little longer.”
So, take heart. Keep pressing on. Don’t let your dry spell make the decisions for you. Don’t let your discouragement keep you from Him. The choice is yours. Because a going through a famine with God is better than going to a feast without Him.
A fire started on some grassland near a farm in Indiana. The fire department from the nearby town was called to put the fire out. The fire proved to be more than the small town fire department could handle, so someone suggested that a rural volunteer fire department be called. Though there was doubt that they would be of any assistance, the call was made.
The volunteer fire department arrived in a dilapidated old fire truck. They drove straight towards the fire and stopped in the middle of the flames. The volunteer firemen jumped off the truck and frantically started spraying water in all directions. Soon they had snuffed out the center of the fire, breaking the blaze into two easily controllable parts.
The farmer was so impressed with the volunteer fire department’s work and so grateful that his farm had been spared, that he presented the volunteer fire department with a check for $1000. A local news reporter asked the volunteer fire captain what the department planned to do with the funds. "That should be obvious," he responded, "the first thing we’ll do is get the brakes fixed on that stupid fire truck."
The moral of the story? God can use even difficult situations to refresh you. Be open to God’s provisions, to His wisdom, and to His timing. Rely on Him, trust Him, and wait for Him. He will refresh you!
