When the Brook Dried Up

The water was gone. Not just gone...bare,bones dry. In fact, if he knelt down he could touch the cracks in the old brook bed.
Why? He had obeyed...he had been faithful. In fact, he had not hesitated.
The Lord had said, " Go hide" and he had gone..no questions asked.
So, he had done the right thing. Why was the water gone? Then the Lord came again. Only these instructions  made less sense than the first, and he still obeyed. God said, "Go to Zarephath."
And what awaited him there? Just a widow and her son...who were worse off than he was, if that was even possible. But again, he did not fuss or even question. The Bible shows he simply walked the long road to Zarephath and found the widow. If he felt down and out, this widow was in a worse position...preparing her last meal.
Imagine that image that he stumbled upon. Doubtless this woman had cried tears until there were no tears left...but the raw emotion was still there in the absence of tears.
Her son was getting ready to eat his final meal with her and then they would both begin the horrible process of slowly starving to death.
"Oh Lord, this will not be easy" the dusty prophet must have thought to himself. Nevertheless, he approaced the woman with the authority that only comes from above and requested some water. A steep request in a severe drought such as this...but she began to walk away.
Then, he called after her..."Oh, and a little bit of food if you have it!"
That's when the mama bear in her came out.
"As your God lives," she cried in outrage, "I only have a little bit of flour and oil left in my name!"
The prophet tells her to make it anyways and bring it to him.
"God will not let your provisions run out." he explains, and she believes him and does what he asks.

Faith and trust are under construction at the brooks and widows houses of our own lives. We may not like it..we may not understand it..but neither did this prophet at the time that it was happening. Talk about trust. This man trusted God in his most basic human need...food and water. And God brought it to him.
I know in my heart that there must have been at least a moment or two where Elijah( the prophet) said to himself, "Did i mishear my next direction? Am I doing something wrong? Why has He not given me my next direction?"
And then, when God does tell this prophet to move on ..where does he end up? In a worse situation that before! Now, he finds himself dependent on a widow, who had a rough time just providing enough for herself. I know that if I had been him I might have just died of fear just thinking of asking this poor starving lady for the rest of her food. But you know what I am holding out for? The ending. You see, if you keep on reading the story, the climax is coming out...God is about to use this one prophet to bring ultimate glory to Himself! The people of Israel had pretty much thrown the One true God out the window and had been worshiping Baal. God used this dusty, thirsty brook-dwelling, raven-fed prophet to show a whole mountain side full of people the power and awesome wonder of God.
Right now, I am sitting at the dried up brook and I am asking, "Why? I thought I was doing what you told me? I thought this was the road I was supposed to take."  I am walking from the dried up brook to a widow's house and thinking, "How did this happen?"
But I do not know the final chapter. I do not see, yet, how God will be glorified, but I am going to trust that He will be. Just like the prophet sitting at his brook...I do not know what the next chapter will be. But I can tell you one thing, if I even get to have 1/100th of an ending like Elijah the prophet...then my brook experience will be worth it all.