In First Kings, chapter seventeen, verse seven, when the brook dried up, God directed Elijah to go to a pagan territory inhabited by Baal worshipers. He provided for Elijah through a poor widow, as in verse nine. The experience further strengthened Elijah’s confidence in God’s providence. Sometimes adversity occurs even though we are not in God’s will. Through such experiences, He may help us in a different and better way than we expected.
God wonderfully suits men to the work he designs them for. The times were fit for an Elijah; an Elijah was suitable for them. The Spirit of the Lord knows how to fit men for the occasions. Elijah let Ahab know that God was displeased with the idolaters and would chastise them by the want of rain, which was not in the power of the gods they served to bestow. Elijah had to hide himself as instructed by God.
If providence calls us to solitude and retirement, it becomes us to go: when we cannot be valuable, we must be patient. However, when we cannot work for God, we must sit still quietly for him. The ravens were appointed to bring him meat and did so. Let those who have but from hand to mouth learn to live upon providence and trust it for the bread of the day, in the day. God could have sent angels to minister to him, but he chose to show that he can serve his purposes by the meanest creatures, as effectually as by the mightiest.
Elijah seems to have continued thus above a year. The natural supply of water, which came by ordinary providence, failed: but the miraculous supply of food, made sure to him by promise, failed not. If the heavens decline, the earth breaks down, of course. Such are all our creature comforts: we lose them when we most need them, like brooks in summer. But there is a river which makes glad the city of God, that never runs dry, a well of water that springs up to eternal life. Lord, give us that living water!