“And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”
1 Kings 17:4-7

The Lord had instructed Elijah to go to the Brook Cherith and to hide himself there. Elijah was now on the public stage, appearing before King Ahab and declaring that it would not rain. James 5:17-18 pulls back the veil on this and informs us that “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.” The hiding of self at Cherith was not so that he might learn to pray; he was already a man of prayer. The hiding of self was to teach Elijah that there was no room for self in the service of the Lord. As C. H. Mackintosh put it, “Our time of training in secret must far exceed our time of acting in public.”

This time alone with the Lord was valuable for Elijah in another way. It taught him that God alone was his provider. Elijah had water to drink, and the Lord commanded ravens to feed him. When we are in the center of the will of God, He will provide for all our needs. The raven was an unclean bird (Leviticus 11:13-19), yet the Lord would demonstrate to His servant that He was over all and would provide for him as he hid himself. The Lord sent him bread and meat every morning and evening through these ravens, while he also drank from the brook.

When the brook dried up, the Lord who had provided was still with Elijah! The brook drying up did not take the Lord by surprise. His care for Elijah was not hindered by the brook drying up, and He was still in control. When the brooks of our lives dry up, we must remember that the Lord is able to provide. The grace that has saved us is the grace that is able to sustain us, and His sustaining grace in our lives is sufficient for our needs!

Anchor For Today:
The Lord’s provision was possible because Elijah had hidden himself and was where the Lord had instructed him to be. This is the value of a hidden life.