When God calls you, He will equip you. When God gives you a task, he will provide what you need to accomplish that task.
When God called me to law school, he gave me a promise I could cling to. I needed the reassurance so often, I prayed these words nearly every day:
“Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass” 1 Thessalonians 5:24.
When God called Elijah to pronounce a three-year drought over Israel, God also promised to provide food and water for the now-fugitive prophet, a man on the run.
“Hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan, and it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there” 1 Kings 17:3-4.
God provided meals for Elijah two times every day.
“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 17:6.
Elijah must have found this arrangement strange, knowing scripture pronounced the unclean birds “detestable” and “abominable” Leviticus 11:13,15. Not only that, what sort of meat were these carrion birds bringing to Elijah? It wasn’t thinly sliced pastrami, we know that. It wasn’t chicken nuggets, or meatballs, or barbecued ribs.
Ravens, from which we get the word “ravenous,” are scavengers. They’ll eat anything, which often means tearing the flesh from dead animals (which were also unclean). On top of that, nearly every culture associates ravens with death and bad luck.
Again—Elijah must have found this strange, perhaps even disgusting. But when it comes to the lives of his prophets, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Elijah had no choice but to eat what God provided, and to do so in faith. The point is, God promised to provide for Elijah and he did.
Has God called you to accomplish something difficult? He promises to provide for your needs while you work toward his goals. Look at the promises of God in the Bible and ask him to help you locate a specific promise you can claim that will encourage you as you pursue his calling.
Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass 1 Thessalonians 5:24.
AΩ
Household Words: 