STXWM Blog

In 1 Kings 17, the prophet Elijah was sent by God to tell King Ahab that there would be a drought.  This was obviously unpopular news so then God told Elijah to go hide by a brook where God would allow him to drink from the brook and eat food brought to him by birds.  

The man of God was obedient and then he was miraculously provided for! Praise the Lord!  But soon, as a result of the drought, the brook dried up.  The miraculous provision of God did what?! It dried up?!

When I’m reading the Bible (and often while I’m living my life) I will tell God, “I don’t like how You did that.”  I have a stubborn hubris that likes to lead me to think that I have the right solutions to most situations if God would just listen to me and do it my way.  I have to slay it daily but, to be honest, some days I’m more successful than others.  This tends to be a by-product of a hyper independent life.  

As a single mom (who has been single for more of my adult life than I was ever coupled) I make decisions for my family everyday with no input from any other adults except for the input that I get in prayer.  As a result, I understand that my decisions (right or wrong) are mine alone to answer for.  Another result is that I am fairly confident in my ability to make those decisions alone.  This is an area in which the Holy Spirit is still working on me.

Bringing it back to Elijah’s story, he may have felt like I did when he was watching the brook dry up.  “God, this is working.  Right here where I’m at, You are providing exactly what I need and You are hiding me from harm.  Why does the brook have to dry up at all?  Surely, You can keep this brook running even in the drought!  Why not just keep doing it this way?”

The answer was simple.  By the brook, Elijah was comfortable and had everything he needed but God needed him to move because the story wasn’t only about Elijah.  God’s story never is only about us.

When God brings me to a place in my life and family where I am comfortable and God is providing for all my needs, I am tempted to just beg God to be able to stay there even if I know He is asking me to move.  When the drought is looming, it’s hard to walk away from a source of provision that is right beside me.  

God needed Elijah to move.  God’s provision would go with him and Elijah never seemed to doubt it.  How different a response that is to the one I often have in similar situations.  How do I manage to simultaneously doubt that God will care for me while I’m still eating the last bits of bread that the ravens brought me?  

I do not have a very cooperative relationship with change.  I will sit by my dry brook and ask God to fill it again rather than getting up and following the provision to His next destination for me.  I have obviously moved when He has asked me to in the past and will again in the future but it continues to be a struggle for me.  Why?  Because I struggle to trust Him like I know I should.  I have so much evidence for the fact that God will take care of me but I still allow myself to fear first rather than trust Him immediately.

Elijah left the brook and went to a town where he met a woman, a single mom (widow) in a town called Zarapheth.  He asked her for food and she told him that she didn’t have much and he asked her to trust his word that God would provide.

When I imagine myself in this woman’s place, being asked to make food for a stranger before she fed herself and her son what she believed would be their last meal before they died of starvation, I think of what I would do.  “What could it hurt?  Maybe God will provide.  Instead of making something for me and my son, I’ll give this man my portion with the hope that his God will provide like he says.”  It is easy for me to understand trust when I have nowhere else to turn.  Trust in the face of desperation and giving out of my need feels easy when compared to being asked to walk away from plenty into an unknown future.

The Bible says that when she obeyed then there was “always enough flour and oil left in the containers until the Lord sent rain on the land.”  There was enough.  She and her son lived because God provided.  She didn’t get rich but they had food and maybe, they even had enough to bless others who were in need during that time.  God was faithful to bless her and her son and to care for them.

Are you struggling to move when you know God is asking you to?  Do you struggle to trust Him sometimes even though you know He can and He will take care of you.  

If you are in either of these places, can I ask you one question?  Do you know how much He loves you?  That is where my brain tries to get in the way of my faith many times.  Because I struggle to love myself well and to see myself through God’s eyes, I struggle to understand how anyone else could love me well either, even God.

I do not say this for sympathy.  I believe many more people struggle with understanding God’s love than will readily admit it in the church and in the world in general.  Hyperindependence is a necessary reality for some, like our friend in Zarepheth, but when living a life in relationship with God it can hinder us from being willing to depend on Him.  He wants to care for us and hold us but when you have been alone for a long time that concept feels foreign and strange.  Alone doesn’t just have to be unmarried.  It can be a state of mind where you only know how to depend on yourself because you are the only person you have learned to trust.

Please hear me as I preach to myself at the same time as I remind you that He loves you so much and He wants the best in the world for you and He wants you to trust Him so He can give you the best He has to offer.  He can be trusted.  You can be soft with Him.  You can be held and it’s ok for you to want that for yourself again.  You don’t have to do it alone.

Stephanie Sharp is a teacher, a writer, a musician and an ordained minister.  She is also a divorced, single mother of 3 teenagers.  She writes for the South Texas Women’s Ministries Blog and founded a ministry for ladies walking through divorce and single motherhood called The Well.  You can contact Stephanie at thewellwm@gmail.com.