“So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside the Kerith Brook east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.” (1 Kings 17:5-7 NLT)
As Elijah discovered, obedience to the Lord sometimes gets a little frightening. We obey the Lord, but money runs short or out; our food supply dwindles, and the prospects of anything changing seem slim to none. What should we do? The same thing Elijah did – He waited until he heard from the Lord!
The next verses in 1 Kings explain that the Lord sent Elijah to a widow at Zarephath where he not only supplied Elijah’s needs, but those of the widow and her son. Satan would have us believe if the Lord really loved us, He would supply our every need BEFORE we really need it, but that’s not how the Lord works. Need and want are two very different things. Satan seeks to coddle us with wants, while the Lord is more interested in building our trust in Him by supplying our needs…right on time!
Sometimes God’s strategy is to strip us of material things so all we have left is Him, because it’s only then we’ll discover He’s all we really need. After my wife left me, I lost my position as an Associate Pastor, that left me without an income. We had to sell the house, turn in my leased car, and my wife took custody of the children because I had nothing with which to support them. It was in that context I whined to the Lord that I’d lost everything, which is exactly how it felt, but that’s when He clearly said to me: “You haven’t lost everything, because you haven’t lost ME, and I’m all you need!”
For several months following, I could have papered my walls with eviction notices, but was never evicted and I missed a few meals, but the Lord ALWAYS made a way. He even allowed me to win a contest that allowed me to take my then 16-year-old daughter to the Bahamas. Trust in the Lord has never been a problem for me since then and I’m urging you to not let it be a problem for you.
Burk Parsons reminds us: “Satan loves to try to pamper us with temporal comforts. God loves to strip them away so we’ll find ultimate comfort in him alone.” When we can decide the Lord is enough before tragedy, it sure makes it easier to navigate when seasons of need or want arrive. We all have them, they may not be material, but we all have seasons of leanness in our spirit when we pray, and our prayers seem to bounce back from the ceiling.
In those seasons we must keep on praying, trusting, believing that God IS hearing, and He WILL respond in time. We were on the verge of losing the house before it sold, but it DID sell and we were able to get out from under it just in time. “Yeh, but I lost my house! Why didn’t God come through for me?” Were you trusting Him then? Crying out in confident hope? If you were, where are things now? Have you landed on your feet or are you still struggling? Is it that you don’t have enough or you’re just not content with what He’s given you? It took me more than 10 years to pay off my debt and get back on my feet financially.
Often our discontent grows out of our greed for more than we need, so, we buy a bigger house or rent a bigger apartment than we need or can afford, then paint ourselves into a corner and expect the Lord to bail us out. There are logical consequences for misappropriation of our resources and unless and until we realize that and learn to live within our means and stop demanding to be pampered, we’re going to continue to struggle.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 