I Kings 17:8-16

&nb= sp;

In the midst= of drought, God will provide

fo= r our needs.

A sermon preached by

Dr. William O. (Bud) R= eeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

August 3, 2008

Man, it’s been hot! We went on our vacation = in the Pacific Northwest, wore jackets in the morning and evening, walked in the s= now in the mountains, and we came home to Arkansas, and it’s been typical summer heat ever since. We ha= ve hot water running out of both of our taps at home. I’ve been breaking a sweat g= oing to get the paper at 6:30 in the morning.&n= bsp; You can make sun tea instantly.&nbs= p;

In this heat, you can = get a second-degree burn from your car door.&nbs= p; The seat belt buckle can serve as a branding iron. And you learn how to drive with ju= st two fingers touching the steering wheel.

You see the effects of= the heat all around us. I saw some birds using potholders to pull the worms out of the ground. Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs. The cows are giving evaporated milk= . It’s so dry the trees are whi= stling for the dogs.

In fact, it’s be= en so dry I heard the Baptists have started baptizing by sprinkling, the Presbyterians are using wet-wipes, and the Catholics are praying for the wi= ne to turn back into water.

That’s how hot a= nd dry it’s been—a little exaggerated. But today, I want to think ab= out another kind of dryness—the spiritual dryness that effects all of us = from time to time. Sometimes we experience a spiritual drought, and our walk with God can become a trek thr= ough the desert of despair. Someti= mes we feel like we are disconnected from the flow of God’s grace, cut off f= rom his blessings. We feel alienated,= lost, alone and anxious. The Psalmi= st expressed this spiritual drought in Psalm 22: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my h= eart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.”[1] This is the dark night of the soul;= this is the deep despair of the spirit; this is the drought of faith.=

But I have Good News f= or you today. In the midst of the drought, God w= ill provide our needs. There = is always hope!

One of the best drought stories in the Bible is the story of the prophet Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. The whole episode started because the King of Israel, Ahab, sinned before God. Not only did he worship foreign id= ols, but he even married a wicked foreign woman named Jezebel. She was mean as a snake and soon h= ad Ahab building temples to her foreign gods left and right.=

God quickly had his fi= ll of that, and he sent Elijah to Ahab with a message: “It will not rain un= til I say so.” Then Elijah = went off into the wilderness to live by a creek.

Things were fine for a while. The creek had water, a= nd the ravens would bring Elijah food. But eventually the drought got so bad the creek dried up, and the ravens quit coming. So God sent Elijah to Zarephath, a village in a neighboring country, where he said there was a wi= dow who would feed the man of God.

Sure enough, as Elijah approached Zarephath, there was a little woman outside of the town picking = up sticks for kindling. Elijah a= sked her to bring him a drink of water, a scarce commodity in the drought, IR= 17;m sure. As she went to get it, = he called out, “While you’re up, bring me a bit of bread, too.R= 21;

She turned to the prop= het and said, “I have no bread, only a little bit of oil and a handful of meal. I’m going to cook= the last of it for me and my son, then we will starve and die.”

However, Elijah had a = word of Good News for the widow. “Do not be afraid,” he said. He told her to make what she could= and bring it to him to eat. Then = she could make some for her son and herself.&n= bsp; God would see to it that the oil in the vessel and the meal in the j= ar would last until the rain came and the drought was over.<= /p>

Amazingly enough, that= is just what the widow lady did. She didn’t know Elijah from Adam, but she fed him first, and lo and behol= d, the oil and the meal did seem to replenish itself. Each morning there was enough to m= ake the bread for the day, so that the widow, her son, and Elijah were all fed. Nobody starved, and that= was a miracle under the circumstances.

When we compare the dr= ought in Elijah’s time to our own spiritual drought, there are several similarities. First of all, spiritual drought is often self-creat= ed. There was an obvious connection in Elijah’s time. Ahab was evil. He worshipped false god= s; he murdered his rivals; he married badly.&nbs= p; The physical drought was a direct consequence of the actions of Ahab who, according to the Book of Kings, did more evil than anyone before or si= nce.

When we experience spi= ritual drought, it is usually self-created. God has not dried up; you can be sure of that. But our hearts are lured away into= sin, or we fail to do the things we need to do to stay in love with God—li= ke pray and read Scripture and worship and receive the Sacrament and serve and fellowship with other Christians. We spend our time and energy trying to achieve goals that are essentially selfish, and we let ourselves get away from God. Suddenly we find ourselves in the spiritual desert, covered with the dust of despair.

When we find ourselves= in that spiritual desert, we have so little faith that we don’t believe = God can restore us to abundance again. I call this the “only’s.”[2] The widow told Elijah, “I only have a handful of meal and a = little oil—not enough to keep us from starving.”

Elijah replied that God could feed all three of them with that little bit as long as the drought lasted.

When Jesus was teachin= g one day, everyone was getting hungry, and there was a crowd of about 5,000 people. So Jesus told the dis= ciples to get them some grub. The di= sciples said, “We only have five = loaves and two fishes; how is that going to feed all these people?”

Jesus prayed, and they= fed the people, and then the disciples took up twelve baskets of leftovers. Are you getting the picture?<= /o:p>

Sometimes we get into a spiritual drought because we get the “only’s.” I only have this much education; I= only have this much money; I only have this much time or talent or opportunity.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But if we take what we have been g= iven and dedicate it to the Lord, God will do something great with it. He specializes in making much out = of nothing—look at the world! So if we put our meager, drought-stricken resources at his disposal, God will = pour water on the desert; he will send the showers of blessing; he will open up = the floodgates of mercy on us.

The floodgates open when we get our priorities straight<= span style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt'>. Make first things tr= uly first in your life. Keep first things first. The first thing is God.=

When Elijah ordered cu= rb service from the widow of Zarephath, I thought he did a strange thing. He asked her to take the last bit = of meal and oil she had, to make some bread, and to bring it to him to eat. When I first read that, I thought,= what an arrogant thing to do! Elij= ah is being selfish. He should have= let the woman feed herself and her starving son, then he could be the humble servant and take whatever was left. But no, feed the prophet first!&nbs= p;

Then, as I studied dee= per, I understood that this was exactly what was needed. To take the last bit of bread and = give it to the man of God was an act of faith, an act of trust, an act of commit= ment on the part of the widow. As = it was with so many of the miracles of Jesus, so it is with this widow. It was her faith, her willingness = to believe the promise, that set in motion the power of the miracle. But it was more than just faith—her act of service also preceded the miracle. Because she was willing to bring h= er last morsel of food to Elijah, trusting in his promise, then the drought for her and her family was practically over.&n= bsp; They were going to have bread. They would never starve.

We tend to do this backwards. Our actual priorit= y is not God; our priority is personal fulfillment. If God is one way to fulfill our n= eeds, then we will use him to meet our goals.&nb= sp; So we pray when we have time. We serve when it’s convenient with our schedule, and it sounds like fun. We give when we have money left over that we don’t want for ourselves. And we wonder why this God-thing doesn’t work any better for us. We’re having this spiritual drought.

Fulfillment is a gift = of God, an outflowing of his grace. But it only comes when God is our priority. Blessings will come, but not until= we quit seeking the blessings and truly seek God. Seek God first, and everything els= e will come. The prophet Malachi mad= e this point with regard to the tithe: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, = and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”= = [3] With our money, our time, our tale= nt, we either put God first, or we don’t.&n= bsp; If we do, we get the blessings in abundance.

Margaret Pagan from Baltimore had tha= t choice to make one night when they were having a prayer service at her church. She wanted to stay home and make s= ome candied fruit with a new recipe she had been given, but she didn’t ha= ve the three oranges it called for. So reluctantly she went to church. On the way, she stopped at every corner convenience store to get some oranges,= and every one of the stores was sold out.

After church, one of t= he teenagers that she knew asked for a ride home. He lived in a public housing proje= ct, and Margaret figured that with the church service and her taxi run, she wou= ld never get the oranges and get home in time to make her candied fruit. But when Margaret pulled into the parking lot, there sat a pick-up truck loaded with oranges—boxes and boxes of oranges. She gave the teenager a couple of dollars, and asked him to get her three oranges; that’s all she needed. = He came back with an armload of oranges and said the driver apologized for not having any bags.

Margaret said, “= Awed and overjoyed, I took the fruit, returning several to the grateful teen. Th= at night, I made my candied fruit, knowing I had put God first, and he had met= my needs.”[4]

This is the Good News = today.&nbs= p; God will supply our needs. This is how we find hope in the dry times. He desires nothing more than a repentant heart that will turn to him= and redirect some priorities and build a life that gives him glory. God wants to inundate your drought-stricken landscape with the refreshing showers of his grace. He will do it in abundance, if he = is invited. In times of drought, God will supply our needs.

One of our favorite fa= mily vacations from several years ago was a trip that included Yellowstone Nationa= l Park. One of the sights we saw there was the after-effects of a wildfire. In 1988, there was a devastating fi= re that burned over a third of the park. In 2002, almost fourteen years after the fire, there were still vast tracts of land covered with the bare trunks of a great forest that is gone forever.

But you know what? In the midst of those huge burnt-o= ut areas, there were millions of new trees growing up. The fire destroyed the trees, but = it did not destroy the seeds, and over the years the seeds sprouted, and years lat= er there was this massive undergrowth of little fir and balsam and spruce and pine, all about 6 feet tall. Though the fire was devastating, in Yellowstone the forest is recovering. There is new growth and new life.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> There is hope.
No matter what sort of damage there has been in your life, no matter what sort of wildfire or drou= ght or dryness you have experienced, no matter what sort of desert place you ha= ve been wandering in, hear this. There is always hope. There is always a reason to go on.= Don’t ever give up. God will supply your needs. He never runs out!

= The sign of our hope today is the Lord’s Supper. If you are suffering from spiritual drought today, if you have a hunger for God today, then come to this table. At this table we remem= ber the radical action of God in Christ, who took away the sins of the world. At this table, we celebrate the continuing and sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ. At this table, we anticipate the v= ictory of the Kingdom of God, the blessings = of his heavenly home, and the great big buffet we will one day share with Jesus. Has your spiritual life been dry lately? Take heart; I think it’s about to rain. Ame= n!

&nb= sp;

&nb= sp;