Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”
So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. (1 Kings 17:1-16)
I had just finished up a Bible study with a family here in Green Bay. I offered to end with a prayer, and so I asked the family what I should pray for. The woman raised her hand. I thought I knew what she was going to request. The woman is blind. Doctors can’t explain why. On top of that, they have an adult son who’s incapacitated in a nursing home in Mexico. A prayer for sight. A prayer for healing. That’s what I expected. Know what she asked? “Pastor, ask our God to give a little taco to my son in Mexico today.” That was it. “Just a little taco for my son, please.”
I thought to myself, “She should be teaching me about faith in God!” When was the last time you prayed, “Lord, please just give me a little taco—or a little bread—to eat.” I don’t pray like that. Do you? I don’t know about at your house, but we always have food. Always! We take it for granted. When I was a kid, I remember a teammate on my baseball team saying that he and his grandma only ate once a day. I remember thinking, “Why?” Has there ever been a day in your life when you have bowed your head and prayed, “Just give me a little food, please”? There’s a very important question in life that almost never crosses our minds: “Who provides bread?”
That was actually a big question in Elijah’s day. Elijah lived in Israel in the 800s B.C. The Israelites had a king who refused to believe in the Lord—King Ahab. Ahab believed in false gods, especially Baal and Asherah. Have you heard of them? Baal was the rain and storm god. He was represented by a bull. Asherah was the mother-god—like mother earth. Life depended on Baal and his rain. Life depended on Asherah and her fertility. So who provided bread for Israel? Was it the Lord or Baal? Just about everybody thought it was Baal. In fact, Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel put to death as many prophets of the Lord as they could find. It looked hopeless.
Until Elijah showed up. I hope you’ve heard the name “Elijah.” He was one of the great prophets in the Old Testament. Out of the blue, Elijah burst onto the scene and thundered to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” It would not rain again until the Lord said so. Can you see what God was doing? He was going on the attack! Remember what Baal was the god of? Rain! “Okay,” God said. “You think Baal provides the rain? Let’s find out. Let’s see if Baal can produce in his area of expertise. Let’s find out where bread comes from—me or Baal!” See God’s challenge?
Of course, Baal isn’t real. So it didn’t rain for over three years. There was just one problem: If it wasn’t going to rain, who else wasn’t going to have any food? Elijah! I wonder if that crossed his mind as he spoke God’s Word, “There will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years…Wait a minute. How am I going to eat?” God had a plan. He sent Elijah into the wilderness and said, “You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” God’s plan? Ravens. Do you know Tom and Chris? They are the ravens at the wildlife sanctuary. I don’t know if those are their real names, but there’s a sign that says “Tom and Chris Koehler” on their cage, so my kids think their names are Tom and Chris. They were God’s plan: Ravens.
Just think about that. What do you know about ravens? Ravens are scavengers. That means that ravens don’t share. They are the least likely animal to provide for Elijah. But these ravens did. “The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.” It’s ironic that in Elijah’s day, people only ate meat once a day—if they eat any meat at all. Yet, Elijah, in the middle of a drought, ate bread and meat every morning and every evening. Who provides bread? There was no doubt: God does, not Baal!
So who provides your bread? Can we all agree it isn’t Baal? Good! Here’s the harder one: Is it you? It sure seems like daily bread is something we can handle on our own, right? There’s no Baals, but we have banks. No Asherahs, but IRAs. We’re set! King Ahab isn’t the only one who forgets about God. In fact, when Moses and the Israelites were entering the promised land of Israel for the first time, he gave them this warning, “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). “Ask God to give a little taco to my son in Mexico today.” When was the last time you prayed to God for that?
Actually, you pray that all the time. Do you know where? In the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Why “daily” bread? God wants us to trust in him every single day. We don’t pray, “Give me the lottery so that I never have to come back to you again!” No, “give me today my daily bread, so that tomorrow I’ll need to come back to you again and pray the same thing. And the next day. And the next day.” Elijah had to depend on God’s goodness every day—just like you and me. God provides daily bread.
At least, until he doesn’t. You’d expect the story to have a happy ending: Elijah lived there by the brook for years until God let it rain again… Except, “some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.” Now what? Has it happened that you think you’ve got it all figured out how God is going to provide for you, and then the brook dries up? You lose your job. The relationship ends. You get sick. A pandemic strikes. Now what? The ravens and brook were great, until they were gone. Now what? God had a plan: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.”
If it was strange for ravens to provide for Elijah, this was even stranger. Zarephath in the country of Sidon was 100 miles away from where Elijah was. Even worse, do you know who was from Sidon? Wicked queen Jezebel. Do you know whom everybody worshipped in Sidon? Baal. Can you see what God was doing? He was going on the attack—again! What strange instructions: “Don’t worry, Elijah. Just walk 100 miles in a drought to an enemy country—to the home of Baal himself—and go to the house of a…” Did you catch it? A widow. God loves and cares for widows, but widows in a foreign country aren’t at the top of the list of people you go to for help.
In fact, when Elijah asked this widow of Zarephath for a piece of bread, she exclaimed: “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” Can you hear her anguish? It hurts to hear those words: “I am going to bake one more loaf of bread, and then my little son and I will starve to death.”
But Elijah said, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’” Imagine that you’re starving to death and a stranger from a different country comes to you and says, “Give me your last food, and God will take care of you.” What would you say? No way!
But that widow? “She went away and did as Elijah had told her.” It’s hard to think of a better example of faith in the Bible. She trusted in God to provide, and he did. “So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.” Every morning must have been dramatic—the daily drama of the jar and jug. Can you picture that little boy waking up and running to the kitchen, “Is there going to be oil today? Is there going to be flour today?” And the answer? Yes. Every day. Yes! Every morning was fresh proof of God’s mercy and grace. They had to depend on God every day. And God provided every day their daily bread.
As I studied this story, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be cool if your jar of flour never ran out?” And then I realized: Our jar of flour has never run out. Ever. There’s always been another bag of flour to put in it. The food in our cupboard has never run out. Ever. There’s always been more food to fill it up with. Our freezer has never been empty. Actually, our freezer is always stuffed full with more than can fit inside. Why? God provides. Sometimes he uses ravens. Usually, he uses jobs and parents. Maybe even stimulus checks. It’s easy to see God’s hand in the feeding of the 5,000. Can you see God’s hand in the feeding of the 1 or 2 or 5 at your house?
If you can, then you don’t ever have to worry. Paul put it like this, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things” (Romans 8:31-32). God hasn’t just given us daily bread. He’s given us his own Son, Jesus, as our Savior. Jesus gave himself up for us to forgive every one of our sins. That pride in your heart? Forgiven. That ungrateful attitude? Forgiven. That idol? Forgiven. When we see God’s love for us in Jesus, it changes everything. If Jesus was willing to die for you, do you think he’ll ever abandon you? No way! If God was willing to do the biggest thing for you, do you think he’ll do the small things too? Of course. Like daily bread.
We get to see God providing for us in a special way this weekend. We’re celebrating the installation of a new teacher in our school. The truth is, things didn’t go according to our plans. We tried calling various teachers, but none took our call. We tried getting a permanent assignment from Martin Luther College, but there weren’t enough teachers to fill all the schools. But God provided. We’re so thankful to have Mrs. Kaitlyn Wong with us for one year as her husband serves a yearlong internship at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church. But the fact that it’s a one-year call leads us to have to do something: Go back to God again. Trust in God again.
Just like Jesus encourages: “Give us today our daily bread.” Every day we trust in our God to provide. I love the words of a different prophet—Habakkuk. When his people faced drought and famine and war, God led him to write: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Who provides bread? No matter the situation, it’s God!
Comments