There’s a story in the Bible titled “Fed By Ravens” in 1 Kings 17: 1-9. It’s a story of God’s miraculous provision to Elijah during a time of drought. Anyone going through a drought in life right now? A particularly rough time where everything seems to be harder … yeah, God’s going to provide for you, my sister. And it might just be in a very unexpected way.

Let’s read the story together.

Now Elijah told King Ahab, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word!”

Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.”

So Elijah did as the Lord told him and camped beside Kerith Brook, east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.

Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.”

Elijah was a prophet who performed many great miracles of faith. This was a time when the government supported the worship of other gods. But Elijah’s name itself means “Yahweh is my God.”

To turn the people from their idol worship, God would send a drought over the land of Israel. You know, hardship causes us to return to God like nothing else. God knew their worthless idols wouldn’t save them when they prayed to them, but he could. He cares more about our character than our comfort, and this drought would make them very uncomfortable.

Elijah prophesied to the people of Israel that the drought was coming, so when it stopped raining, they of course blamed him. A drought was a serious problem for survival. Crops wouldn’t grow. Rivers would run dry. Animals and then people would die. And because they blamed Elijah for the drought, his very life was in danger with the people’s retaliation.

But God will provide. Don’t you know that’s true? GOD WILL PROVIDE. He will show up in the most unexpected places in the most unconventional ways, and he will personally provide for those who are devoted to him. To protect and provide for Elijah, God tells him in verses 3&4, “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook, near where it enters the Jordan River. Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.”

Elijah had to go in faith. Faith that God would protect him. And faith that somehow, God would provide for him. When God said, “drink from the brook”, Elijah had to wonder when the water would run out. God didn’t promise him it wouldn’t run out, he simply told him to go there in obedience.

God isn’t promising you what he’s given you today will last forever. This entire life is temporary, it’s all going to run out. But can’t you see what he’s given you here for right now? Can’t you see how it’s enough? And don’t you know when this runs out, he will provide in a new way?

But what about those ravens? Ravens, not to eat, but ravens to carry food right to him twice a day. The Lord had commanded the ravens to bring him food. Ravens are large black birds considered at that time to be unclean. You couldn’t eat them or even touch them according to religious laws. So how absolutely bizarre this is God’s chosen means of bringing Elijah food. God could have had fish miraculously flop themselves onto the bank of the river, but no, he has ravens bring bread and meat to him each morning and evening. He could have arranged for kind travelers to secretly bring him a picnic, but no, God chose the ravens. The unclean thing. The forbidden thing by law. This is God’s chosen method of miraculous provision.

You know all those rules and guidelines you put on how things are supposed to be and how God can and can’t work … well, it’s time to drop that! God can use absolutely anything and anyone he wishes, and he can do it any how and any time. Your job isn’t to figure it out, qualify it or predict it, your job is to do exactly what Elijah did and live in trained obedience.

God was training Elijah to be obedient. He was training him to fully trust him when every day his very continued existence seemed so totally unlikely.

Then, guess what happened next. The brook that brought him water dried up. God’s provision ran out. What do you do when what God has given you runs out? What do you do when the blessing you were living on stops being a blessing? Will you trust him then?

Trained obedience teaches us that we must trust in God over his blessings. The blessings of finances, the blessings of health, the blessings of beautiful relationships … those are like a little brook that very well may run out in a drought. But God will always guide your next step to blessings when you are living in your trained obedience.

The Lord next told Elijah to go to a village where he had instructed a widow to feed him. This was equally as strange and unlikely as the ravens carrying meat and bread twice a day. Widows were known to not only be poor, but desperately poor. Going to a widow for food during a drought made absolutely no sense. I think God is trying to train his sons and daughters to be obedient even when it’s absolutely ridiculous.

There’s so much more to this story. In fact, my favorite part is coming when the widow receives miraculous provision that just wouldn’t run out. But for today, we’re going to just sit with those ravens.

The ravens, the unexpected carriers of God’s provision. Have you ever had a raven show up in your life with exactly what you need, just when you need it. That $20 bill you found in a pocket right when you needed gas. That loving word when you were at your absolute lowest. That boss that gave you the job when you weren’t qualified, but it was an open door for you. God’s ravens.

Now, consider how God is prompting you with this story:

“A little boy, having read the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 17 with his widowed mother one wintry night in Germany, as they sat in a fireless room, beside a bare table, asked her if he might leave the door open for God’s ravens to come in; he was so sure that they must be on their way. The mayor of that German town passed by and saw the widow and her son sitting inside. He entered the cold room and asked why they had left the door open as they did. When he learned the reason, he said, ‘I will be God’s raven; and relieved their need then and afterwards.”

Girls, God is asking us to be his ravens. And here’s the really great news … you don’t have to clean yourself up first. You don’t have to show up with all the right words or an abundance of anything. God’s just asking you to show up and then do whatever it is he asks you to do. Whatever it is you see you can do.

So yeah, you know all those rules and guidelines you put on how things are supposed to be and how God can and can’t work … we’re dropping that! God can use absolutely anything and anyone he wishes, and he can do it any how and any time. Your job isn’t to figure it out, qualify it or predict it, your job is to live in trained obedience and sometimes you get to be the raven.

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