Lessons from a Drought by: Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Philor Sr.

Scripture: 1 King 17:8-16 

Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So, he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah. 

 

Lessons from a Drought 

Benjamin Franklin once was quoted saying “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” His argument suggests we do not know the true worth of something until we lack it. While this is like the adage that says “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone” it diligently deals with a necessity for human life. The dryness of a well, without subsequent replacement of water, leads us to nothing but drought. Knowing the worth of water is important because we need it to survive. Water benefits our environment by allowing us to care for and nurture crops. A drought is a prolonged season of dryness that can damage everything trying to grow around it. Droughts are prolonged seasons that often feel like they will never end. They are seasons that cause those affected to lose hope in the end because they testify to the lack of sustenance in a location. Droughts cause malnourishment as we can no longer feed ourselves what we need. All because we need water. Water is that life-giving substance that can quench the thirst of our bodies. It is recommended that we drink 8 glasses of water a day to ensure we avoid dehydration. Dehydration is the unyielding desire for water due to a severe lack over a period of time. While this deals with the surface level of dealing with a drought, I’d like to suggest to you that there are other types of droughts that we do not often address.  

Have you ever been in a dry season? Where you do everything you know how to do, and do not seem to yield the same kind of production that would have been another season? One of those seasons that feels like everything that was supposed to go right has gone wrong? One of those seasons you do not know up from down? One of those seasons where it feels like the bottom of life has dropped out on you? That is what I’d call a drought. And in a drought, we need to find a swift release. Something that will cause us to be freed from the barrenness that restricts our productivity. Benjamin Franklin is right in his theory of the well because when the well for some of us runs dry, we learn the worth of Joy, Peace, and Hope. For some, the dry well reveals the worth of a sound mind. For some, the dry well reveals the worth of Good Health. For some of us, the dry well reveals the worth of financial security. And, for some of us, the dry well reveals the worth of a relationship with God. Many of us are in a drought that others cannot even see. We can smile in the faces of people but find it difficult to sleep but the drought has taken our ability to enjoy a good night’s rest.  

I am currently experiencing a drought where I feel the Well of Living Water that once lived inside of me, has suddenly dried up. The compounded grief, subsequent life shifts, and other tragic events have led to longer nights than days. This drought bears an intensity that has impacted both my ministerial and personal life. It has forced me to sharpen the lens of how I see God because my sight was not far enough and my well was not deep enough. Through the constant effects of daily living, through both joy and pain, I sometimes find myself in contradictory circumstances. Life has put me in rooms full of joy while I am internally wrestling with despair. Some days I fear answering phone calls because another drop of bad news might break me. These feelings often leave me physically depleted and spiritually dehydrated, and subsequently, prove to be signs of a drought. But the reality of this situation is that we are not the first to endure a drought and we will not be the last. This text lifts some lessons on how we can manage the drought. One of the ways in which God decided to teach us these lessons was through the work of the Prophet Elijah.  

The story of Elijah begins in this chapter. It begins with describing the origin of the Prophet and setting his location. He was a man from Tishbe who had a word from the lord. He came to the king to predict a drought, which suggested that there would be no dew nor rain until he said the words. Elijah predicted a drought that would fall over a land, without the regard that the drought would likewise affect him. He finds himself learning the worth of water. The drought caused him to need a means for provision but as a child of God, God provided for him. God instructed him to go to the brook of Cherith, drink from the water of the brook and God would provide him food to eat three times a day. When he arrived at the brook, God did keep His word. God instructed the Ravens to bring him food and Elijah could drink from the brook.  

I wrestle with how long Elijah was supposed to be there because God provided accommodations for Elijah to be at the brook. But Elijah had to stay longer than God had set the reservation for because the brook dried up. God nourished Elijah for this moment of the drought, but Elijah was able to work in the drought. Elijah finds himself in the space that many of us do where he is uncertain of what is ahead of him. But, even then, God comes to him and tells Elijah to go to Zarephath where a widow was instructed to provide for him. Which reminds me that the overarching theme of this sermon should suggest to us that God will provide. No matter the circumstance or the situation we will always notice that God takes on the nature of being Jehovah-Jireh who provides for us. 

This is where we find ourselves in today’s text Elijah was instructed to go to Zarephath, to see a widow. During this time, it is very unlikely that a widow would be able to sustain her own self. The value of a woman was seen based off the quality of her husband’s work. A widowed woman did not have much of a future without having a male child. The only way that a widow would be cared for is if either her husband left money for her to live on or her synagogue decided to help her sustain herself. A Widow was seen as an impoverished woman, and such was the case with this woman. Elijah went there in his drought to get something to eat, and this woman was experiencing a drought of her own. Elijah, this grand preacher, did not have something to eat and was relying on a widow to feed him. It is difficult to be the proclaimer of the promises of God and seem to lack the things to sustain you while on the journey. Nevertheless, Elijah approaches this woman and asks her for a drink of water. As she proceeds to fulfill his request, he further asks her for a piece of bread. This request from Elijah, causes this woman to offer us three lessons from a drought. The first thing that this woman teaches us is that:  

God’s Plan will not always make sense: 

This woman knows that she only has enough meal for her and her son, but the Prophet is telling her that she needs to make him a cake. It would not make sense for her to make the cake for him knowing that she may not have enough meal for herself. If self-preservation is key, her priority would be to ensure that both she and her son would have something to eat. This would not make sense for her to provide a stranger with a meal and go without one, which I believe teaches us a valuable lesson. It is important for us to realize that faith in God can require us to defy our own logic. God often presents to us things that seem impossible as means of proving that He had a plan all along. If we could have made the way ourselves, it would not have been God. If the plan does not make sense to us, you would not have chosen that road. It is a fact that we would be willing to have enough faith in him to believe something that makes no sense to us. If that is what he calls this woman to do. He calls for this woman to be able to give her last two Elijah to make sure she was willing to receive what he had for her. Remember, she was a widow, which meant she had no one else to rely on. If Elijah’s prophecy did not happen, she would have starved and died. But the truth is that she was not simply forfeiting her own future but that also of her son. She would not have enough meal to make him anything to eat either. Which is how she is teaching us another profound lesson for our Drought: 

God’s plan requires our Obedience: 

The text does not suggest to us that this is a religious woman. So much so, when she is responding to Elijah’s request, she is clear to say that Lord is his (Elijah’s) God. Thus, she had no reason to listen to or believe Elijah about the future of her fate. The truth is that if it did not work out in her favor, many people would have thought she had been fooled by a man in need. Despite these realities, she decided to obey his words. She risked her comfort to obey the word of the man of God. But the thing some might miss in our reading is that Elijah is also taking a risk. Elijah went to this woman on the word of God. This raises the idea of how anxiety can inhibit our obedience. He could have been talking to the wrong widow or even been in the wrong town. These thoughts could cause us to not engage with what God has called us to. But Elijah and this Widow were obedient to God. If Elijah never went on the word, the Widow could have starved, which remains us that others can be impacted by our willingness to obey God’s word. In their obedience, both were fed. Which is just like us. Even in the spaces where we feel uneasy, our obedience is preparing us for the already in the not-yet.  

God always keeps His Word: 

Remember, there were two people in the text that needed God to keep His word (Elijah and the Widow). Both were responsible for being obedient as a measure of God keeping His end of the bargain. As a result of their obedience, God had to respond. God responded to Elijah with the woman making the cake but there was a promise made that the woman would have enough until the drought is over. This is a blessing to us because if we are obedient to God’s will and way, provision is already on the way. Which means regardless of our current situation or circumstance; whatever God promised must come to pass. God’s word will not return to Him void and God is not capable of lying. Thus, if God said it; that settles it. Which teaches us something in our drought season, that we do not need to see that provision is coming to know that it is on the way.  

I was University Bandsman during my time at Lincoln University and the band would often travel south for games, competitions, and other types of performances. Depending on how far we going, we would often have to make stops along the way.  No matter where we were going, we were going to end up at a Golden Corral. Sometimes, we would leave the performance and drive an hour to arrive at the golden corral. We may even encounter another Golden Corral during our travel but we had a reservation at another Golden Corral. Before we left the University, a reservation had been set that we would arrive at a certain time, with a certain amount of people to a specific Golden Corral. All we had to do was follow the itinerary. And that’s all we have to do in the droughts of life, is follow the itinerary.  

• When life seems unbearable  

• When the places that replenished us become dry 

• When the people you thought you couldn’t live without leave you 

• When sickness is rapidly spreading  

• When your grief is compounded 

• When life just feels like a drought 

Because life will continue to knock the life out of you and the bottom seem to keep getting lower. In those moments, seasons, or even years of drought; we’ve got to make the right choice. In everything we do in the drought, there is a choice. So much so, the songwriter Harris Johnson penned these words 

 

Some folk would rather have houses and land. 

Some folk choose silver and gold. 

These things they treasure and forget about their souls; 

I’ve decided to make Jesus my choice. 

 

The road is rough; the going gets tough, 

and the hills are hard to climb. 

I’ve started out a long time ago, 

there’s no doubt in my mind; 

I’ve decided to make Jesus my choice.