Devotion for the day: February 1, 2010
Text: 1 Kings 17:6-7
Good morning dear brothers and sisters, how was your weekend and Sunday?
Many churches cancelled their services due to icy and bad roads; however our church had one service instead of 4 so we were blessed by a powerful sermon on Romans 12.
If you missed church, did you spend time as a couple, individual praying and studying God’s word?
If you did praise God, if you haven’t take some time off for God alone today.
Let get back to our text to day from 1 Kings 17:6-7
On Friday we have seen that Elijah was sent by God to hide near the brook and was provided food through ravens. We have also learnt that God is adequate in all our situations and circumstances.
Let me share a story today from Martin Luther’s biography. John Brenz, a friend of Martin Luther was hated by Emperor Charles V. he often tried to kill Brenz and on one occasion sent troop of cavalrymen to arrest him. Hearing about the plot, Brenz took a loaf of bread and went to a nearby town, where he hid in a hayloft. He was there for 14 days. Obviously one loaf of bread was not enough for two weeks. But each day a hen came into the loft and laid an egg. In this way the Lord kept John Brenz alive. On the 15th day the hen did not show up. It seemed like the one lifeline he had clung to had been severed. As he was wondering what he would do without food, John heard the people in the streets say “The cavalrymen are gone at last”.
Dear brothers and sisters, Elijah also experienced what appeared to be the loss of an essential lifeline. God had sent him out into the wilderness and provided food through the ministry of ravens and water from a small creek. But then a difficult situation became worse.
As the drought continued, the brook dried up, At first glance, it might seem that God no longer cared about what happened to His prophet. Instead, God choose to provide in a different way and graciously directed him to the home of a widow in the city of Zarephath.
Perhaps you feel that your creek also has dried up. The God who has been you guide and source of refreshment in a spiritual desert has moved away.
The person who has been your lifeline at work as taken a new job, you might also feel that your dreams had dried up. It may also seem that your marriage, finances, plans to get married, new job, health, relationships have dried up.
There is every possibility to question God in those situations; I have questioned God many times when I went through those dry situations in my life. But glory be to God for those dry situation, had it not been for those situations I wouldn’t have learnt how to trust God in difficult circumstances.
We have to learn to trust God one day at a time. Some of you are thinking Brother Spurgeon I have heard it hundred time. But until you’re living it, you haven’t heard it enough.
Let me give you a quote from W.Elliott, “The reason so many of us are overwrought, tense distracted, and anxious is that we’ve never mastered the art of living one day at a time,”
Did you notice that God never told Elijah what the second step would be until he had taken the first step?
A dried up brook is often a sign of God’s pleasure, not disappointment, in your life. Now if you miss that, you miss it all.
Let me show you three men of faith who have gone through brook drying situations.
1. God told Abraham to take his son and put him on the altar and kill him, I would say that qualifies as Abraham’s brook drying up, wouldn’t you? Yet God was intensely pleased with His servant Abraham.
2. Right in the middle of Paul’s remarkable successful first missionary journey, he was stoned at Lystra and left for dead. His brook dried up, but that dark day became one of the turning points in his life.
3. Joseph was thrown into a dungeon after being falsely accused and misjudged. During that extreme painful time, Joseph’s brook dried up. Did it mean that God was displeased? On the contrary, God was well pleased with his servant
Dear beloved has your creek dried up, do you feel that there is no hope; let me encourage you that God is all powerful. If God could protect and provide for Elijah, Abraham, Joseph He will do the same for you. Situations and circumstances might have changed but our sovereign Lord hasn’t changed.
He will come to your rescue, provide you trust and have faith in Him.
Elijah went to Cherith as an energetic spokesman for God – a prophet.
He emerged from Cherith as a deeper man of God.
All this happened because he was cut down to size beside a book that dried up..
Whatever you might be facing, trust God to provide through another source, it may be far different from what met your need before, but remember, God will not fail you.
Dried up brooks in no way cancel out God’s providential plan. Often, they cause it to emerge.
WHEN GOD CLOSES A DOOR, HE WILL ALWAYS OPEN A WINDOW
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