Brooks and Ravens

As I went to church Sunday, I was prepared for the continuing saga of Ruth by Pastor Nate. As the service started it was announced that one of the other men in the church would be teaching. Mike has taught a couple times since I have been at the church, and has done a great job. He told us to turn to the book of I Kings, as we would be looking at Elijah. Great, nice change up from Ruth, maybe this sermon won't tug on my soul as Pastor Nate's has. I should know better by now.

We find Elijah being told by God to go to a brook to wait out the drought He would be sending. Elijah went. Nice cool brook, shady green trees, a good scroll to read...not bad. 'Oh, and I will be sending ravens with your food.' Scavenger birds...dirty, nasty beaks... bringing his food? Not kosher! Elijah had just stood alone against a pagan nation,  and he gets birds?

It has been a tough couple of weeks for me as I have been trying to find a 'field to glean'. I am finding that homemakers are not very employable. I am finding I have very few marketable skills. I have very little work experience outside the home. I have had days of roller coaster emotions, days where things look like there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, days where I am ready to sell everything, including my house and move in with my kids, which they have said I can do. I have great kids!

My brook has been dry for a long time. I have tried to be faithful and trudge along, being faithful and obedient in doing what I need to do to find work. Application, after application, workshops at a job source office...I am weary. I don't want to play anymore. I want the Lord to make it all better. But as I was reminded today, the Lord doesn't do things the way we think it should be done...what I see as needs, the Lord sees differently...how I think God should provide, He provides in a totally opposite way...because He knows.

Elijah got a brook with ravens to provide his needs. But eventually the brook dried up, and yet God continued to provide. My dried brook looks like the end of the world, as hopeless, as desperate. God sees it as an opportunity to shine...to show me who He is in my life. My dried brook isn't His displeasure, but for His pleasure. How I live right now verifies my theology. My dried brook is giving me an opportunity to trust, to rest, and at some point to rise, as Elijah did, to continue the work the Lord has called me too...whatever that is.

I am looking for that small cloud letting me know the drought is nearly over. Yet, as I look at that dried up creek, the rocky bottom of what once was a full, flowing stream bed, you know what I see....

...what looks very much like a trodden path. He has gone before me. He is leading me on.

Pictures from Google Images