Year 1, Day 358: 1 Kings 17

Elijah’s In the House – and Then Out of it!

Today we open 1 Kings 17 with a disastrous story.  Imagine hearing Elijah make the pronouncement that it would not rain upon the earth unless he says for it to rain.  And then what is the next thing He does?  God tells him to go away! 

Imagine hearing that there will be no rain until Elijah speaks and the next thing he does is disappear.  Talk about making a point.  This would be no simple drought.  There would be no way to wear down Elijah’s patience and get him to try and be merciful.  He pronounces judgment, indicates the condition for the judgment to stop, and then promptly removes himself so that the condition cannot be met.

This is not a case of God or Elijah being mean.  This is not God or Elijah being uncaring.  This is essentially what every parent has done when telling a child to go to their room and think about what they’ve done.  You discipline the child and give them time to contemplate what has happened.  It is important that the Hebrew people figure out the consequences and weigh the consequences with their action.  This is an important part in understanding responsibility, accountability, and guilt.

This is also an important part of faith.  How are we as God’s people ever to appreciate the salvation that He provides unless we understand our own depravity?  Unless we know our own sinfulness, can we ever appreciate the gift of grace? 

This is why God puts the Israelites under a drought.  They need to understand the depravity of their actions, repent, and come back to him.  They need to experience a life of their own power – or lack thereof – so that they can come back grateful to God.  How long has man tried to make it rain under our own power and we simply cannot make it happen!

Unfortunately they are like a stubborn child who refuses to learn the lesson.  It will take more than a simple drought to convince these people to repent.  But it is a great place to start.

God’s Provision

Elijah then goes and is fed by ravens and got water out of a brook.  God provides, but God does it his own way.  Elijah has to humble himself and trust in God’s ravens.  Elijah has to realize that he will not be able to care for his own needs in the midst of a national drought.  Even the prophet has a lesson to learn. 

This should not be overlooked.  God’s servants and God’s prophets don’t know it all when they begin to follow God.  In fact, they don’t even know it all when their days have come to an end!  They will make mistakes and do their own share of learning along the way, too.  It is so easy to assume that God’s prophets have the story all figured out before God even asks them to go.  The truth is, God’s prophets have just as much to learn and understand as do the people to whom they are talking.

Elijah’s In the Widow’s House!

Elijah then moves on to the widow.  The first story that we have is the jar of flour and container of oil that don’t run out.  There are a plethora of lessons here.  Notice that the widow puts God’s agenda before her own.  She was planning on making a final meal and then dying with her son.  But she takes out of whatever meal she had planned and gives to Elijah first.  When she puts God’s agenda first, she is wide open to seeing His will.

God simply asks that we give Him what He has already given to us.  He doesn’t need us to be great; He needs us to be willing so that He can be great through us.  He doesn’t need us to be an expert; He needs us to be open to allow Him to be the expert through us.  He doesn’t need us to have a plan; He needs us to be willing to follow-through with the plan He already has put into motion.  He can do the miracle; we just need to be willing to be the vessel that He has called us to be.

Finally we have the story of the widow’s son.  Whereas the food from the ravens and the brook was Elijah’s time to learn, the death of widow’s son is her time to learn.  It is sad to see her react in a lack of faith as she does.  After all, does it really have to take the death of her son to know Elijah’s God is real?  How long have they been eating out of a jar of flour that won’t go empty!  However, I certainly cannot fault her or blame her for her expression here.  The death of one’s son is a great stress; people often react out of poorly thought emotion during such time.

We should understand the pattern presented here in this chapter now that we have worked our way through it.  Times of blessing often precede times of testing, just as the woman was blessed with flour prior to the death of her son.  We think of it the other way around.  Often, times of reward do follow times of trial: think of Job, Abraham, Joshua, etc.  However, it is just as often that times of trial follow times of blessing.  Sometimes the blessing is a test and our trial reveals whether we were prepared to pass or not: think of Solomon, who failed when given a blessing of wisdom as a test.  Sometimes the blessing is a deepening of our spirituality and the trial is simply answering God’s call: think about Paul who underwent a blessing on the road to Damascus but that set up for a lifetime of trial for the sake of Jesus.  Whatever the case, we should understand that blessing often precedes trial.

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NOTA BENE:

I pray that everyone has a blessed Christmas Eve, and if you belong to a congregation that has a Christmas Eve service I pray that your service is a blessing to your life.  Let us not forget that tomorrow is the day we celebrate not just an infant babe in the manger – but God’s plan of salvation come in flesh to this world.  Jesus came, hallelujah!  He came to die for our sake.  Amen, amen.