There are seasons in life when the supply begins to run low. Sometimes it is money. Sometimes it is strength. Sometimes it is patience, opportunity or simply the feeling that we do not have much left to give. Most of us know what it is to look at a situation and wonder, “How are we going to make it?”
First Kings 17 gives us two powerful pictures of this kind of season. Elijah was sitting beside the brook Cherith, exactly where God had told him to be. God had provided water from the brook and had even commanded ravens to bring him food. Yet the Bible says, “And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up.”
That verse reminds us that sometimes brooks dry up even when we are right where God wants us to be. Not every hardship means we have missed God. Not every financial struggle means we are outside His will. Not every closed door means God has abandoned us.
The brook dried up, but God had not.
God then sent Elijah to Zarephath, where he met a widow gathering sticks. She had only “an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse.” Her plan was to prepare one final meal for herself and her son and then wait for death.
The brook was empty. The barrel was almost empty. The oil was almost gone. But God was not empty.
That is the great lesson of this passage: when our supply runs out, God’s supply has not run out.
The first thing we must do in difficult seasons is remember the Provider. We have a tendency to measure God’s faithfulness by what we can see. When the bank account is full, the pantry is stocked, everyone is healthy, and life is going smoothly, it is easy to say that God is good. But He is still good when the brook dries up.
Our circumstances change. God does not.
Sometimes God allows one source of provision to end because He is preparing another. Elijah may have expected God to refill the brook, but instead God told him to go somewhere else. We often become attached to the method, but God wants us attached to the Provider. The job, the savings account, the opportunity or the person who helps us may all be channels, but God Himself is the Source.
We must also respond with obedience rather than panic. Elijah did not sit beside the dry brook complaining about what used to be. When God said, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath,” Elijah went. Faith does not always know what will happen next month, but faith asks, “What has God told me to do today?”
The widow also teaches us to recognize what remains. She did not have much, but she did have a handful of meal and a little oil. We can become so focused on what is gone that we overlook what God has left in our hands.
God has always been able to do much with little. Moses had a rod. David had five stones. A boy had five loaves and two fishes. The widow had a handful of meal.
Then God gave her daily provision. The Bible says, “The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.” She was not necessarily given years of food all at once. She simply had enough day after day.
That is often how God works. Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We may not have tomorrow’s strength today, but when tomorrow comes, God will still be there.
So when the brook dries up, remember the Provider. When the barrel gets low, recognize what remains. When you do not know what to do, obey the next thing God has shown you.
The brook may dry up. The meal may run low. The oil may almost fail. But God never does.
Jimmy Barrett is a resident of Blackshear and pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Waycross.
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