Happy Friday friends! We have successfully made it through another week! God is so faithful. He has blessed me all week long. He is a wonderful Savior. I wish the world could truly know who Jesus is and I am convinced there would never be another lost soul on earth.
I have a confession. I am not proud of it, but I am not waiting well. Sometimes I am, sometimes it is okay and I am not longing for what I had in Alabama. Sometimes I am at peace to be back in Indiana. I have moments where I feel happy to be back and things are good. Then other times I am tired of waiting. I am growing weary. To be honest I stop trusting and I begin to look at my circumstances instead of remembering the promise. And it's easy to beat myself up over this. It's easy for me to criticize my doubts, but I am human. It does not make it okay, but it is a natural reaction after waiting so long on what God had said and not seeing it materialize, and even seeing one door slam in our faces after another.
Sometimes I say to God, "Lord Your Word says that the way of a transgressor is hard. (Proverbs 13:15) So Lord if I am having a tough time and things seem so hard, please show me where I am sinning." And you know what He does? He shows me! He shows me where I am allowing disbelief and discontentment to overtake my faith. He told me to trust Him even when it doesn't look like it will happen. I didn't do that. And he used my friend Doris Cush to show me a beautiful message on Instagram by straightenyourcrown.1 and then Doris dmcushite posted a beautiful message on Instagram also that uplifted me and opened my eyes to some things. And the Lord Himself showed me again in the word of God this morning in my Bible reading time. I want to share what He showed me today.
The verse of the day in my Bible app from YouVersion is John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. That got my attention first. I have read this verse many, many times and today it really stood out to me. It was like I heard Jesus telling me to not get discouraged. I believe in God, so I should also believe what Jesus said. His Word says that He will give us the desires of our heart in Psalm 37:4. We must first delight in Him by staying in His Word according to Psalm 1:2. He promised to meet all our needs according to His riches in glory when we read Philippians 4:19. And when we pray, if we believe, we can ask what we will and it shall be done because the Bible tells us so in Mark 11:24. But God went on to show me myself as I read about Elijah and He taught me out of the book of First Kings.
In 1 Kings chapter 17, God told Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon and live there. He said that He had told a widow who lives in Zarephath to give Elijah something to eat. So Elijah got up and went to that city and just like God said, there was a woman gathering up sticks. He called to her to bring him something to drink. She went to get it and he called to her to also bring him some bread. She told him she did not have what he asked her for. Then she told him what she had: a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little cruse of oil that she was going to make a fire with the sticks she had collected, make her and her son their last meal, and die.
God told Elijah to go and this woman would sustain him. He could have looked at the situation in the natural, like I am doing in my situation and started to complain. He could have picked up on the woman's depression and start asking God, "Where is my blessing? She can't even feed herself and her son. How can I ask to take her last meal?" But he didn't do that. He knew what God said and so he looked past the situation. Why can't I? Elijah tells her to not be afraid. There is the key! Behind every person in doubt is fear! Elijah knows what God can do! God is not a God of subtraction and deficits. He is a God of addition and multiplication! So Elijah says, "Feed me first, and then make something for you and your son." He knew God said he would be fed and he knew that God would make sure the widow and her son would have food, too. Then he prophesies to her and says that her barrel of meal and her cruse of oil will not run out until God brought rain on the earth! Elijah is looking for rain and he prophesied a miracle to this widow that was coming for her! The Bible says in 1 Kings 17:15, 16 And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which He spake by Elijah."
That's an incredible story of God pulling the woman and her son through a time of starvation and approaching death, as well as keeping His promise to Elijah. He was sustained from the abundance as well because we read that they were able to eat many days. Now that is not the end of their story. After God performed such a great miracle, the widow's son got sick and died. I am much like the widow in this story, not only the first time she had a conversation with him about the meal and the oil but even now. She looks to Elijah and asks him what he has done! She wants to know what she did to him so bad that he wants to bring up her past wrongs and even kill her son! It's not a proud moment for me to admit that I did this, too. I looked at God and said, "Your Word says the way of a transgressor is hard. Am I being punished for something I have done? Did we come to Indiana at Your Word and then not even get what I thought You would give me?" I wanted things to look a certain way. I wanted things to happen a certain way. I look at the last six months and I see nothing I was expecting. I became disappointed. But I did get the things God told me I would have. Things happened exactly the way God said they would. I was just sidelined by my expectation of how things should be.
Elijah took the child and laid across him three times and asked God to give the widow back her son. God revived the child and Elijah took him to his mother and said, "See, thy son liveth." (verse 23) 1 Kings 17:24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the Word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth. So it wasn't enough that the miracle of having food to eat in a famine could prove Elijah was a man of God and that God's Word is true. She believed after she got her son back from the dead. I need to believe God's Word is true because God is God and He cannot lie. I need to hold on the promise of not just having our own home, but also of the other things He promised me and not wait for a big miracle or some sign to reassure me. I am doing better but it has been so hard. Life is not always easy and fun and good. We must not lose heart when the days turn cold and bleak and no hope is in sight. God is still in control.
In 1 Kings chapter 18, there was a famine in the land. That is kind of how I feel in my life right now: like there is a famine. It feels like lack and dry barrenness. God gives Elijah another promise and another mission. He told Elijah to show himself to Ahab and God said He would send rain upon the earth. Now if I were Elijah, I would think that meant once I presented myself to the king that the clouds would fill the sky, I would hear the cracks of thunder as lightning zig-zagged across the sky, and then the rain would fall.
So Ahab and Elijah meet up. Elijah calls for a throw-down to prove God is the only God. He challenges Ahab and his 450 false prophets of Baal and 400 false prophets of Asherah to meet him on Mount Caramel to see if their false gods could bring fire down from heaven, or if it would be the true and only God who would bring down fire. So all the people gathered like spectators at a sporting event. They wanted to see what would happen. Elijah was the only prophet of God on one side, and the 850 prophets of evil were on the other side. Elijah asked the people, "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the LORD be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him." But the people didn't say a word.
Elijah said that he was the only prophet of the LORD, but Baal has 450 prophets. He wagered that each would take a bullock, cut it in pieces, lay it on wood, but not put any fire beneath it. Then the prophets of Baal were to summon their gods, and Elijah said he would call on the name of his God, and "the God who answers by fire, let Him be God." So the people liked the idea and the challenge was on.
Elijah let them go first. The 450 men set up the sacrifice, but did not put fire beneath it, and from the morning until noon they cried out, "O Baal, hear us." No answer came. The fire did not fall. They jumped on the altar. Then Elijah started making fun of them. He said, "Call louder. Surely he is a god! Maybe he is talking, busy, traveling, or maybe he's asleep and you need to wake him up!" This is not true of Jehovah God. We know He is always listening to our heart's cry. He is not too busy for us. He is in all places at all times and He never slumbers nor sleeps. Elijah must have really enjoyed seeing these 450 men jumping up and down like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
The 450 prophets of Baal screamed and cut themselves until blood gushed from their veins. They began to prophesy until it was time for the evening sacrifice, but no voice sounded from the gods. There was no one to answer them or pay attention to them. These men were so deceived by Satan.
Elijah had the people gather around him. He repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down. Elijah took 12 stones according to the 12 tribes of Israel, and built an altar in the name of the LORD. He made a wide trench around the altar, put the wood in order, cut the bullock in pieces, and laid them on the wood. He instructed the people to fill four barrels with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. They did that three times, and the water ran around the altar filling the trench.
The time had come to do the evening sacrifice. Elijah said, "LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am Thy servant, and that I have done all these things at Thy Word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that Thou art the LORD God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again." Then the fire of God fell on the altar. It consumed the burnt sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up the water in the trench. Immediately the people fell on their face to the earth! They said, "The LORD, He is the God; the LORD, He is the God."
Elijah took the prophets of Baal to the brook Kishon and killed them there. He told Ahab, "Get up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the abundance of rain." God showed up in a much bigger way than what I imagined He would do if He had told me to meet up with Ahab. He displayed His power and glory. All that looked upon this great Mount Caramel challenge knew who was God and who was not. The bigger picture was to turn the hearts of the people back to God. Sometimes I just want to get to the promise and I miss the bigger picture of all that God is doing in the middle. Like the way we were able to see my father-in-law before he passed, and the way we were able to reconnect with our families, and the way someone we love stopped drinking after becoming an alcoholic. We see the way we are prospering and God is moving and providing and doing so many things that occur in the journey and I'm upset that we have not seen the "rain" yet.
Elijah told Ahab that the rain was coming. He said he heard the sound of not just rain, but the ABUNDANCE of rain. He wasn't predicting a sprinkle. He was expecting a rain storm to water the earth like it had not done in three years! He was expecting something BIG! God had promised it.
And many of you may remember how Elijah squats down in a birthing position, head between his knees, as he sent out his servant seven times to "Go up now, look toward the sea." Time and time and time again the servant came back and said, "There is nothing." Each time the man of God could have started to doubt he heard God correctly. Each time he could have started to give in to fear and doubt that the rain would come. But Elijah was not in fear and doubt. He did not question what God had said. He knew he heard correctly. Elijah positioned himself to give birth in the supernatural to the promise God made. He prepared for it. He was waiting for it. Each time he urged the servant to go look, and each time the answer was "There is nothing."
Each time we look at what God promised us, do not give up! Do not let the enemy in your head! Remember what God told you and do not give up! Listen!!! Do you hear that? It is the abundance of rain. Get yourself ready. It is time for the rain to fall from heaven. It is time to get everything God promised us. It is time to feel the rain on our skin! The dry, barren places are getting hydrated and nourished. New life is coming! New hope is welling up because God is about to give us everything He said we could have!
This is not a prosperity gospel message. This is an encouragement that if God said He was going to give you something specifically, hold on to it and don't let go. Hold your head up high and pop open that umbrella because blessings are coming down!
1 Kings 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. and he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not.
That was all Elijah needed. A cloud the size of man's hand was in the sky. That was what he was waiting for. He told his servant to tell the king to get his chariot ready and head back home before the rain came and prevented him from leaving. Meanwhile, the sky was black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain and Ahab rode back to Jezreel in his chariot. God's hand was on Elijah, like it was on Ezra (remember this week's Bible study), and Elijah literally outran the chariot Ahab was in. You can trust and believe Ahab had a fast chariot. It just proves again that with God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
I have repented of doubting and not trusting when the waiting is longer than I thought it should be. I have asked God to search my heart and show me where I am messing up, and He did. He lovingly showed me four different ways and none of it made me feel condemned. I only felt convicted and had a heart to repent. I want to please my Jesus and I want to honor Abba Father with my life. It is not easy to wait so long but God did not tell me it would be. He only promised that He would see me through.
I can honestly say that this has helped me. I hope it helps you, too. I always pray that something I share on this blog post will give you strength for your journey and light for your way. God bless you!
~Bridgett Owens
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