When Your Brook Runs Dry

Many may find themselves in a time of yearning and deep longing for more in this new, epoch season we are engaging. You may be experiencing an unrest or dissatisfaction with things "as is". You have heard the song being released from Heaven and your heart is eager to join in the song.

For some, the very things that brought life to you or to your ministry have now become "life-less". These things are not bad or wrong, but God has allowed a shift to take place to cause our hearts to seek Him and prepare for the new wine that He is pouring out.

The prophet Elijah knew what it was to follow the promptings and voice of God. God wasted none of his experiences and used them to prepare Him for his ministry as a prophet. Elijah entered the scene, an unknown to man, but obviously known by God. We first find Elijah being directed by God to go to Kerith Ravine (I Kings 17) where ravens would bring him bread and meat and he would drink from a brook.

In I Kings 17: 7, we find these words, "Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land". Elijah had been in this place of beautiful supernatural dependence on God for his daily needs and then the brook dried up. Elijah may never have moved on to Zarephath had the brook kept running to quench his thirst.

Has God dried up your brook? Has the thing that used to sustain you no longer been adequate for your hunger and thirst?

If so, like Elijah, God may be causing you to move on to His next great supply and place of encounter. Like us, Elijah was in process, and learning among other things that God alone was His sustainer. How bizarre it must have seemed to have ravens delivering his next meal! Yet, the lesson would have gone deep within Elijah's heart, "My God can be depended upon beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Elijah's name means "My God is Yahweh". Within Elijah, there was not to be a thought of depending upon himself as God was establishing a foundation and framework from which Elijah would operate throughout his ministry. God was teaching him dependence on Him with the ravens and with the widow of Zarephath so that he could operate with confidence and authority. The same God who brought the ravens and filled the jar of flour and jug of oil would send the fire that consumed the sacrifice before the prophets of Baal.

It is a time of forward movement in the Body of Christ, and God may be causing your brook to run dry so you will move on to the next place of encounter with Him. Elijah saw the miraculous hand of God in Zarephath and yet, he would have missed it had he remained comfortable, staying at his first place of encounter at Kerith Ravine. God had a purpose in Kerith Ravine, and He had a purpose in Zarephath. Zarephath means "refinement" and it ended up being just that for Elijah. With each encounter that God ordained for him, he rose to the occasion and declared the word of the Lord. After he raised the widow's dead son back to life she said of Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth."

God has had many in a place of refinement with Him. He has been working deeply in hearts and lives bringing His people into greater depths of identity, intimacy, and authority with Him. Do not despair if your brook has dried up and you find your self in that "in-between" place of not yet seeing the fulfillment of your promises. God may be transitioning you to your next place of encounter with Him. Receive the upgrades He has for you that will prepare you for the next season with Him.

Don't despise the lessons in your secluded place with Him. He is preparing you for greater things!