The Brook Dried Up Because It Was Time To Move On

1 Kings 17 – This is a “just enough” season.

1 Kings 17:3-4 (NIV) – Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook and I will order ravens to feed you there.

• It looks like there is no provision left in this season because God has plans to provide for you in ways that you have not seen yet. YOUR job is to take heed to his voice and be obedient in going where your provision is waiting for you. – Even though you cannot see where it will come from, just trust that he will have it waiting for you.

1 Kings 17: 5-6 (NIV) – So he did what the Lord told him…6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

• The ravens brought Elijah JUST ENOUGH for one meal, one moment, one season. He didn’t have a pantry stocked with food. He couldn’t see his next meal in front of him but the Lord continued to provide everything that he needed per his promise, ‘If you go where I tell you to go, I will take care of everything from there.’
• God required Elijah to trust in him for every meal, during which, he was given a limited amount of food; however, Elijah had unlimited access to a brook of living water. He could drink to his heart’s content. Wherever we see water in scripture, it is analogous to the presence of the Holy spirit.
  • Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV) -…man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
  • Elijah’s food supply was limited. He had just enough. His access to the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Lord God Almighty, was contrastingly unlimited. It was abundant and overflowing.

1 Kings 17:7-9 (NIV) – Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, 9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”

• Elijah’s provision dried up because God appointed that time for him to move on. What would have happened if Elijah chose to be scared in leaving his current place of sustenance? He would have been looking for water in a dried up brook and waiting for ravens that were never to return. The brook didn’t dry up because he did anything wrong, but because it was time for him to move on.