Creek Beds for Living Water

1 Kings 17:2-7 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

I read a interesting metaphor by Dr. McGee concerning this passage in 1 Kings today that I’d like to share with you today. Elijah is in the wilderness, and he goes to the brook every morning for water and notices that it is going down a little bit more each day. By that, he could figure out how many days it would be before it dried up completely.

When Elijah looked at that little brook, which was getting smaller and smaller, he learned a spiritual lesson. He saw that his life was a dried up brook. He was nothing … he was just a empty creek bed, a channel through which “living water” could flow.

John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

We are an empty brook and a dry creek bed, and do not have any water of life. It is only as the water of life, the holy Word of God, flows through us that we can be a channel of blessing.

 God was telling Elijah, “You are not a big, strong, rugged individual/ You are no stronger or better than that dried-up brook. You will have no strength until the water of life flows through you.” And the lesson is that you and I, today, are just dried up creek beds unless the Word of God is flowing through us. May a fountain of “living” water springing up into everlasting life to flow in, through, and from us always and forever as creek beds full to the banks.

Praise be to God.