Well.....I was doing my devotion this morning and came upon the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17:1-24. It really struck me how God loves to use the most impossible ways to show His Sovereignty. In this story, God tells Elijah that there is going to be a drought for the next few years and that he needs to go tell mean ol' King Ahab that news. (Ch. 16 told us that King Ahab was the most evil king so far...) So, Elijah tells Ahab the bad news and then the Lord tells him he better run and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. Then he tells Elijah that he will be able to drink from the brook and that the ravens will bring him food. I don't know about you, but I would have a hard time believing that some bird was going to be responsible for FEEDING me! But, Elijah did what the Lord told him, and sure enough, every morning and night RAVENS brought him bread and meat. Wow. What you might not know is that ravens are notorious for not even caring for their own young! So, if they won't even worry about feeding their own babies, it's pretty remarkable that they would bring food to this strange guy twice a day for 3 years, huh?
Now, if that is not enough to show God's absolute Sovereignty, he tells Elijah to go from the Ravine to Zarephath where a WIDOW will provide him with food. First the ravens, now a widow. Back then the widows were the poorest people around and would be the first to run out of food during a famine. But, once again, Elijah trusted the Lord and made the 90 MILE trek to find this widow that was apparently going to feed him. Don't you know that Elijah must've been thinking "Lord, can't you find me a widow that is like 5 miles away.....90? That'll take me FOREVER!" Well, that's what I would've been thinking anyways! So he finds this widow and asks her to bring him a drink which she does. Then he asks her for some bread and she tells him that all she has left is a tiny bit of olive oil and a handful of flour, and that, in fact, she was going to make that into bread for her and her son as their last meal because then they would surely die from starvation. Well, Elijah tells her to not be afraid and to go ahead and make the bread for him, her son, and herself, and that the Lord would never let the flour or olive oil run out until the drought ended. So, the widow does what he asks. Verse 12 shows that the widow did believe in his God. Now that took some faith on the widow's part, huh? To give the rest of what she has to some strange man........But, sure enough, they never ran out of food. God did provide!
Ch. 17 ends with the widow's son dying (not from starvation, but it doesn't say why), and Elijah prays over the boy PERSISTENTLY and he is actually raised from the dead. This happens to be the first recorded incident in Scripture of one being raised from the dead. Wow.
So, isn't that whole story truly remarkable? I truly pray that God will give me the faith of Elijah and that widow. It really shows me just how shallow my own faith is. And I just love how God uses two of the most improbable sources to take care of Elijah during the drought/famine: RAVENS and a WIDOW. Now that, my friends, shows God's Absolute Sovereignty.
Expectations for 2012
14 years ago
When I was reading the 10 prayers book I was struck how the author would write for pages and hundreds of words. In the end he only succeeded in saying what the Lord said in a few words in the Scripture. And the Lord said it better at that.
ReplyDeleteThe Scripture is at once wondrously simple and enticingly complex. C S Lewis said something like the Bible was bigger on the inside that it was on the outside.