by Rose Murdock

1. And Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

2. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,

3. Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.  1 Kings 17:1-3

Elijah the Prophet told Ahab the King of Israel that there was going to be a drought.  Then the Lord told Elijah to go hide himself by a brook called Cherith.

4. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.

5. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

6. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.  1 Kings 17:4-6

Elijah was a Prophet for the Lord.  When he told Ahab there would be a drought he was doing so as a Prophet for the Lord.  He was giving a message from God.  We read in 1 Kings 18:1 that three years later the Lord told Elijah to go see Ahab and He would send rain on the earth.  Elijah acted in response to the Word of the Lord and it happened like God said it would.  It’s important we see that Elijah was being obedient to God.

Now, there’s something we need to see concerning what Elijah did after he told Ahab it wasn’t going to rain.  You see, the Lord had made provision for Elijah.  The Lord already had a plan in mind of how He was going to take care of Elijah and provide food for him ahead of time.

When the Lord tells you to do something and you act in obedience to Him, He has a plan already in place to take care of you!  But there was something Elijah had to do here.  He had to go where God told Him to go.  Not only did he obey the Lord in giving the word to Ahab, but he obeyed the Lord concerning God’s provision for him.  The Lord told him to go to the brook Cherith.  What if Elijah would have said, "No Lord, I think I want to go to the other brook.  I don’t like that brook Cherith too much."

In order for Elijah to have the provision God intended for him to have, he had to go to where the Lord told him to go to get it!

If you look up the word "Cherith" in the Hebrew in the Strong’s Concordance it says, "a cut."  It’s from a word that means to cut, as in cutting a covenant.  It’s the same word used when the Lord said to Solomon, "Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father,…"  (2 Chronicles 7:18)

Elijah went to the place God had prepared for Him and it’s interesting the name of the place stems from this ‘covenant’ word.

Today, we stand in covenant with God.  God has made a covenant with us through the shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ.  But we have a part to play in it.  We have to do what He says to do in order to take advantage of the provisions of the covenant!  Your provision is waiting for you in the place of obedience.  Obedience to the Word of the Lord will bring you to the place of provision made available to you today through Jesus Christ.  God has provided for us, as a part of the covenant He’s made with us but will we do what He says do or go where He says go?  If we do then we will find our provision awaiting us there!

Do you need miraculous provision in your life?  Does it look like your resources are just going to dry up in the drought along with everyone else?  Then you need to obey the Word of the Lord, which will bring you to a place of provision!

What has the Lord been speaking to your heart today?  What scriptures keep coming up before you?  What message do you keep hearing preached?  The Lord is trying to bring you to a place of miraculous provision.  When you do what it is that He’s telling you to do then He has something already in mind for you.  He has a plan to bless you already and He’s just waiting for you to go get it!

We need to choose His plans over our plans.  It’s not because God’s trying to keep us under His thumb so to speak.  It’s because He has a place prepared for us that He wants to bless us with.

13. Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."

14. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that."  James 4:13-15 NAS

Sometimes we make our own plans and don’t even pray about whether or not it’s God’s will for us.  We might agree to take a job in another city and make big plans to go move there and make money and not even ask the Lord if this is something He is leading us to do.

When we follow His leading and do what He says to do we can rest assured that our obedience to Him will bring us to a place of promise.

Find your brook.  Find your Cherith.  We know we can find God’s will for us in His Word.  We know if we live according to His commands and principals that He’s outlined in His Word that we will be in His will.  But as far as the specifics in your life like where to live, where to work and what to do in specific situations there’s a brook He wants to bring you to.  There’s covenant provisions He wants you to drink from and as you’re obedient to do what He says you will find He has already prepared your miraculous provision!

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