I Kings 17:7

The education of our faith is incomplete if we have yet to learn that God’s providence works through loss, that there is a ministry to us through failure and the fading of things, and that He gives the gift of emptiness.

It is, in fact, the material insecurities of life that cause our lives to be spiritually established.

Week after week, with an unwavering and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched the brook dwindle and finally dry up. Often tempted to stumble in unbelief, he nevertheless refused to allow his circumstances to come between himself and God. Unbelief looks at God through the circumstances, just as we often see the sun dimmed by clouds or smoke. But faith puts God between itself and its circumstances, and looks at them through Him.

Elijah’s brook dwindled to only a silver thread, which formed pools at the base of the largest rocks. Then the pools evaporated, the birds flew away, and the wild animals of the fields and forests no longer came to drink, for the brook became completely dry. And only then, to Elijah’s patient and faithful spirit, did the word of the Lord come and say, “Go at once to Zarephath” (v. 9).

God sent Elijah to the brook, and it dried up. It did not prove equal to the need of the prophet. It failed; God knew it would; He made it to fail. “The brook dried up.” This is an aspect of the Divine providence that sorely perplexes our minds and tries our faith. God knows that there are heavenly whispers that men cannot hear till the drought of trouble and perhaps weariness has silenced the babbling brooks of joy. And He is not satisfied until we have learned to depend not upon His gifts, but upon Himself.

His camp was pitched where Cherith’s stream was flowing— The man of God! ’T was God’s appointed spot! When it might fail, he knew not; only knowing That God cared for his lot. Full many days on Cherith’s bank he camped him, And from its cool refreshing, drew his share; And foolish fears of failing streams ne’er damped him; Was he not God’s own care? Yet, lo, at length, the prospect strangely altered; The drought e’en Cherith’s fountain had assailed; Slowly but sure, the flowing waters faltered Until, at last, they failed! Then came the word from One whose eye beholding Saw that the stream, the living stream had dried, Sending him forth, to find by new unfolding, None of his needs denied.