84 | When the Brook Dries Up: Trusting God in Changing Circumstances (1 Kings 17:1–7)

What happens when the very thing God gave you begins to disappear?

The job.

The relationship.

Your health.

The season of stability you thought would last.

In 1 Kings 17, Elijah obeys God completely and still watches the brook God provided begin to dry up.

Why?

Because sometimes God changes the provision without ever changing His faithfulness.

In this new series through the life of Elijah, we'll discover that God's greatest work isn't always in changing our circumstances. Often, it's in changing what we're trusting.

If you're walking through uncertainty, loss, or a season where life feels different than you expected, this message is for you. 

In This Episode, We'll Discuss:

•  ✅ Why God sometimes allows the brook to dry up 
•  ✅ The difference between trusting God's gifts and trusting God Himself 
•  ✅ How Elijah learned dependence before public ministry 
•  ✅ What God's faithfulness really means according to Scripture 
•  ✅ Why changing circumstances don't mean God has changed 
•  ✅ How to find peace when the future feels uncertain 

The brook may change.

The God who provides never does.

🎧 Listen now to Episode 84 | When the Brook Dries Up: Trusting God in Changing Circumstances (1 Kings 17:1–7).

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most of us, if we have lived long enough, have walked through a season where something we depended on began to slip away. It might have been a job that gave us stability. It might have been a relationship that gave us belonging. It might have been a season of health, our peace, our certainty about the future. The kind of season where the brook was flowing and everything felt secure. And then slowly or suddenly the brook began to dry up. And in that season there is one thing every honest believer eventually discovers. We discover how much confidence we had quietly placed in the thing that was changing. Because it's easy to say I trust God when the brook is full. It is harder to say it when the brook is drying up. So the question this passage puts in front of us today is one of the most honest questions in the Christian life. What happens when something God gave us begins to disappear? What happens when the brook dries up? Today we are beginning a journey through one of the most honest chapters in the Old Testament about what it feels like to trust God when life gets hard. The chapter where we meet the prophet Elijah. And before God uses Elijah publicly on Mount Carmel, before Elijah ever performs a single public miracle, God takes him privately to a place called Kirith, a brook, a hidden valley, a season of obscurity, and there at Kirith, God teaches Elijah a lesson every believer must eventually learn. The brook will sometimes change, but the God who provides through it never does. So if you're standing beside a drying brook today, or if you can still remember what it feels like to stand beside one, this lesson is for you, because the truth that will carry us through every lesson in this series is the same truth that carried Elijah through Careth. The living God can be trusted in every season because he is always faithful to his word. Let's get into it. Welcome to Sunday Renewal, the podcast designed to help you revive your faith, restore your hope, and discover the deep, unshakable peace that comes from walking daily with God. I'm Ernest Benjamin, a husband, father, entrepreneur, and someone who spent nearly two decades teaching and preaching God's word to people just like you. People who want more than just feel-good messages. They want truth, biblical truth that meets them in their real lives and empowers them to live boldly for Christ. I believe God's word isn't just inspiring, it's life-changing. And each week we'll explore scripture in a way that's practical, relevant, and deeply personal so you can apply it to your life right now and take your faith to the next level. So let's dive into today's episode and take the next step toward renewal together. So before we open to our text, first Kings chapter 17, let me give you the moment in history where this story, this account begins. Israel is in spiritual crisis. King Ahab is on the throne, and he has led the nation of Israel deeper into idolatry than any king before him. We might say that he inherited a system of false worship that began generations earlier under King Jeroboam, who had set up golden calves in Bethel and Dan and led Israel away from true worship. You can read about that in first Kings chapter 12, verses 25 through 33. And Ahab added to those idols of Jeroboam. He added Baal, or some would say Baal worship, and a Sheerah on top of that, making it worse than any king before him. So before we read Elijah's first words, I want us to hear what the inspired writer of Kings tells us about Ahab's reign in the verses just before we get into first Kings chapter seventeen. Listen carefully. In the thirty eighth year of Asa, King of Judah, Ahab the son of Amri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Amri reigned over Israel and Samaria twenty two years. And Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethabel, King of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria, and Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the god of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. twenty nine through thirty three. The Canaanites believed Baal controlled rain, thunder, and the fertility of the land. And I want you to understand that detail matters because in the very next moment God is going to do something that no false storm god can stop. Before God sends fire on Mount Carmel, God sends a message. And the message comes through a prophet whose name we have never heard before this moment in Israel's history. A prophet named Elijah. Listen to what he says. Now Elijah, the Tishbite of Tishbi and Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word. Look again at what Elijah says As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word. This is not a casual statement, this is a declaration of war, not against Ahab, not even against Jezebel, against Baal, against the entire spiritual system that Israel had embraced, against the lie that there is any God in heaven or earth besides the Lord. And Elijah's opening words tell us everything as the Lord, the God of Israel lives as the Lord lives. I want you to stay with that phrase for a moment. Baal was supposed to be the god of life. Baal was supposed to bring the rain that revived the land. Baal was supposed to die in the dry season and return in the autumn storms. Baal was the god whose worship promised fertility, prosperity. Ba was the god whose worship promised life itself. And Elijah stands in front of the king who has embraced Baal worship and institutionalized it in Israel. Elijah stands in front of that king and says in effect the God you have abandoned is the only living God. The God you have chosen is dead, and the reign that Baal supposedly controls will not fall because the living God has spoken. This is what God often does. He does not argue with idols, he exposes them. Because the moment the living God speaks and the rain stops, every claim Baal ever made collapses. The clouds do not roll in, the harvest does not come. The fertility myths fail, and Israel begins to discover that Ba, the God they had been trusting, was never alive at all. Now here is where this passage will rearrange how we think about God's faithfulness. Most of us, if we are honest, define God's faithfulness by what He gives us. When the job comes through, God is faithful. When the diagnosis is good, God is faithful. When the relationship works out, God is faithful. When the bank account is healthy, Lord have mercy, God is faithful. But the Bible teaches us something most modern Christians have stopped saying out loud. God's faithfulness is not measured by his blessings. God's faithfulness is measured by his consistency to his word. I want to say that again. God's faithfulness is not measured by his blessings. God's faithfulness is measured by his consistency to his word. And his word includes blessings and curses. His word includes promises as well as warnings. And here is something easy to miss. But the inspired writer of First Kings does not want us to miss it. The verse immediately before Elijah's appearance, the very last sentence the inspired writer records before chapter seventeen begins is this. In his days, this will be the days of Ahab of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram, his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua, the son of Nun. Now most readers move right past this verse, but the inspired writer placed it here on purpose. To understand what is happening, we have to go back centuries to the book of Joshua, chapter six. After God supernaturally delivered the city of Jericho into Israel's hands, Joshua pronounced a specific curse on anyone who had ever rebuilt it. Listen to what he said. Joshua chapter six verse twenty six. Joshua laid an oath on them at that time saying, Cursed before the Lord be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates? Did you hear what Joshua said? The curse was specific. Whoever rebuilt Jericho would do so at the cost of his firstborn and his youngest son. Now go back with me to first Kings chapter sixteen verse thirty four. A man named Hio of Bethel rebuilds Jericho, either ignorant of Joshua's curse or unmoved by it. His firstborn dies when the foundation is laid, and his youngest son when the gates are set up. The detail is exact, the fulfillment is precise. The inspired writer records this to make a theological point, and he tells us in plain language why Hil's sons died, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua the son of none. The inspired writer is telling us before Elijah ever speaks one word that God's prophetic word does not fail, even centuries later, even when human beings defy it, even when the world has forgotten it, the word of God comes to pass. That is the message the inspired writer places directly in front of us before Elijah ever appears, and that message sets up everything we are about to read, because the warning Elijah's drought is about to fulfill was given centuries earlier as well. Listen to what God said to Israel through Moses, long before Ahab, long before Elijah, long before any of the events we are about to witness. We turn over to Deuteronomy chapter eleven. And Deuteronomy chapter eleven is part of what we might call a covenant sermon. Moses is standing on the edge of the promised land, addressing the next generation of Israelites just before they cross the Jordan. And he is laying out in plain language the blessings and the warnings that come with the covenant they are about to enter. Listen carefully to what God told them through Moses about what would happen if they ever turned to other gods. But be careful, don't let your heart be deceived, so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods. If you do, the Lord's anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvest. Then you will quickly die in that good land the Lord is giving you. Deuteronomy chapter eleven, verses sixteen and seventeen, that's from the New Living Translation. Did you hear what God said? Centuries before Elijah ever stood before Ahab, God told Israel exactly what would happen if they turned to other gods. He would shut up the sky, he would hold back the rain, the ground will fail to produce its harvests. And here in first Kings seventeen, the sky is about to be shut up. The rain is about to stop. The ground is about to fail to produce. This is not a surprise. This is not an overreaction. This is not God being harsh. This is God being exactly who He said He would be. The drought is not the absence of God's faithfulness, the drought is the evidence of it. And here's where I have to push on every one of us, including myself, because once we understand that God's faithfulness includes the fulfillment of His warnings, we have to ask a harder question. What is God actually doing when he shuts up the heavens? Is he being cruel? Is he being arbitrary? Is he punishing people who deserve better? The answer is no. He is doing something far deeper than that. He is exposing the bankruptcy of every false god his people have been trusting. Because as long as the rain falls, Israel can pretend or be deceived into believing that Baal is working. As long as the harvest comes in, Israel can pretend or be deceived into believing that idolatry has no consequences. As long as life is functioning, Israel can pretend or be deceived into believing that worshiping the wrong God does not matter. So God shuts up the heavens, not because he hates Israel, but because he loves them too much to let them die trusting a lie. The drought is an act of mercy. It is God removing the cover that had been hiding the truth. It is God exposing the false God so his people can return to the true one. Sometimes God's faithfulness is revealed not by what he gives. But by what he removes. That is a hard sentence because it means the dry seasons in our lives are not evidence that God has stopped loving us. The dry season may be evidence that God loves us too much to let us keep trusting a lie. It cuts against everything our culture tells us about how a good God should act. But it is what the text actually teaches. So let me ask you a question that this verse forces every one of us to consider. What have you been trusting to give you what only God can give? What have you been trusting to give you what only God can give? Maybe it has been your job, the security of a steady paycheck, the identity that comes from being good at your work. Maybe it has been your health, the freedom of a body that has never let you down. Maybe it has been a relationship, the certainty of someone who has always been there. Maybe it has been your sense of control, the reassurance of a life you could see coming. Maybe it has been your reputation, the dignity of knowing how people regard you. Maybe it has been your political tribe, your retirement account, your ministry role, your routine. The form changes from generation to generation. The tendency does not. And if you have lived long enough, you've probably watched God allow one of those things to dry up. Not because he stopped loving you, but because he loved you too much to let you keep trusting it instead of him. That is what God is doing in first Kings seventeen. That is what God is still doing in his church today. He keeps his word, he warns his people, he exposes false gods, and he invites every one of us to return to the only God who is actually alive. But Elijah's confrontation with Ahab is only the beginning of the story, and what God does next reveals a truth about his faithfulness that hopefully we will never forget. Listen to what happens next. And the word of the Lord came to him. Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Kirith, that is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Kirith that is east of the Jordan, and the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. In verse one, Elijah is standing before the king of Israel, the most visible position in the entire nation, a public confrontation most likely. And in verse two, the very next thing God says to him is essentially hide yourself, not announce more prophecies, not travel through Israel and call the nation to repentance, not build a public ministry. Hide yourself. The man who was just confronting the king of Israel is now disappearing from public view entirely. The God who just used Elijah's voice publicly now hides him privately. So let me ask the question the text invites us to ask. Why Kirith? The choice of Kirith is not arbitrary. It is intentional because Kirith is not just a refuge. I would suggest to you that Kirith is a classroom. God is going to use Elijah in extraordinary ways. The fire on Mount Carmel, the defeat of the prophets of Baal, the return of the rain, the confrontation with Jezebel, the mentoring of Elisha, God is going to eventually use Elijah in extraordinary ways. But before God uses him publicly, God forms Elijah privately. And the classroom where that foundation begins is a hidden brook called Kirith. This is often how God forms the servants he intends to use hiddenness before visibility, private formation before public ministry, Kirith before Carmel. But before we go further, look at what the inspired writer says about Elijah's response to God's word. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Kirith that is east of the Jordan first Kings seventeen verse five. There is no record of Elijah arguing with God. There is no record of him hesitating. There's no record of him asking why God would send him into hiddenness, into hiding when he could have continued in public ministry. He went. He did what God said. He lived where God told him to live. And the inspired writer's language is significant. He says Elijah did according to the word of the Lord, which is the same phrase used about Hil of Bethel in the verse just before chapter seventeen begins. The contrast is striking. Hil disregarded God's word and lost his sons according to the word of the Lord. Elijah obeyed God's word and lived according to the word of the Lord. The reliability of God's word does not change based on our response to it, but the consequences of that reliability do. This is the kind of obedience that makes a kirith season possible. Not because Elijah was perfect, he was not. We will see his weakness in later chapters, but because in this moment when God said hi, guess what he did? Elijah hid. And the result of his obedience was the provision the inspired writer is about to describe. Look at how God chooses to feed him. God could have provided food through any number of normal means. He could have sent a faithful Israelite family, he could have multiplied bread the way he would later do through Elisha. He could have given Elijah money to buy food in nearby villages. But God chose ravens, and we have to feel the strangeness of this choice. Because in the law of Moses, in Leviticus chapter eleven and Deuteronomy chapter fourteen, ravens were explicitly classified as unclean birds. They were scavengers. They were the kind of bird Israelites were forbidden to eat and certainly not the kind of bird anyone would have expected to deliver food. And these ravens are not just bringing food once. They are bringing food twice every day. Bread and meat in the morning, bread and meat in the evening for as long as Elijah lives at the brook. The text does not describe a feast, it does not describe scraps. It describes what was enough and what was reliable. The provision was sufficient and it was certain. Nothing about this could be sustained apart from God's continued command. Ravens do not behave this way on their own, and they are doing it because God has commanded them to. He cannot make the ravens come. He has no influence over them. But the God who promised has not failed, and so the ravens come exactly as God said they would. So I want you to hear this carefully. God's goal was never merely to feed Elijah. God's goal was to form Elijah. The food mattered. Elijah's body needed bread. The brook quenched his thirst, but the deeper work was not happening in Elijah's stomach. The deeper work was happening in Elijah's heart. God was teaching him that the prophet who would later stand on Mount Carmel and call down fire from heaven was first the man who needed to learn that his very next meal, his very existence depended entirely on the word, on the authority and the faithfulness of the Lord. The strength to confront idolatry was forged in dependence on God. And what was true of Elijah is true of every believer. God is often doing something in us while He is doing something for us. His provision is real, but the deeper work is rarely the provision itself. The deeper work is the forming, the slow, patient, often hidden work of teaching us, teaching us, teaching us to depend on him rather than on the things his hand provides. At this point in the story, everything seems stable. The brook is flowing, the ravens are coming, meat and bread twice a day. God is providing exactly as he promised. But the inspired writer isn't finished. In fact, the most important lesson of Kirith is still ahead. Listen to what happens next. And after a while, the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land. After all the build up, the dramatic confrontation with Ahab, the announcement of the drought, the divine directive to hide at Kirith, the supernatural provision through ravens, the daily bread morning and evening, the inspired writer gives us one quiet sentence. The brook dried up. If you're reading first Kings seventeen for the first time, this verse might catch you off guard, because nothing about the previous six verses prepared you for it. The provision was working, the system was holding, Elijah was being sustained exactly as God has promised. And then without warning, without explanation, without any indication that something has changed in Elijah's faithfulness or in God's intentions, the inspired writer simply says The Brook dried up. Now here's where most modern readers go wrong with this verse. We tend to read the brook dried up as something unexpected, something unfortunate, something that disrupts God's provision for Elijah. But the inspired writer does not present it that way. Look at the second half of the verse, the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land. And what did God say in verse one? There shall neither be dew nor rain these years except by my word. The drying brook is not the disruption of God's provision. The drying brook is the consequence of God's word doing exactly what God said it would do. Elijah's brook is drying up because the drought God announced is working. The same word that started the drought in verse one is now drying up the brook in verse seven. The system is not breaking down. The system is functioning precisely as God said it would. And this is critical to see because if we miss it, we will read the drying brook as evidence that God has stopped paying attention, as evidence that the provision was a fluke and is now ending, as evidence that maybe Elijah did something wrong, none of that is in the text. But here's what we must not miss. When the brook is flowing, trusting God is easy. When the ravens are coming, faith feels natural. When the provision is steady, dependence is not really being tested. But when the brook begins to dry up, when the provision that has sustained us begins to disappear, that is when faith is actually tested. Because in that moment every honest believer faces the same question Elijah faced. Was I trusting the brook? Or was I trusting the God who sent me to it? Was I depending on the provision or on my divine provider? And many of us, if we are honest, discover at the drying brook that we have begun trusting the provision more than our God, trusting the provision more than our sovereign provider. We were grateful for the brook, but somewhere along the way the brook became the thing we depended on. The job, the relationship, the health, the certainty, those things took place of God and we began depending on them. And when those things begin to slip away, we feel like the ground is moving under our feet. Not because God has changed, but because we had quietly transferred our trust from him to his gifts. That is exactly what God is exposing in this verse. He is not punishing Elijah. He is not abandoning Elijah. He is teaching Elijah at the very point where the lesson is most clearly seen that the provider God is more reliable than the provision that which he provides. The same God who said I have commanded the ravens to feed you there is the same God who is now saying The next stage of this journey is somewhere else. The brook is not the goal. The brook was the means. And when the means runs its course, the God who appointed the means is still faithful and is preparing the next means he will use. This is what I want every one of us to take home from this passage. God is often doing something in us while he is doing something for us. He was sustaining Elijah in Kirith. He was also teaching him dependence. He was feeding the prophet through ravens. He was also forming the prophet's trust. The brook was real. The provision was real, but the deeper reality was that the Lord himself was the source all along. And the same is true of every brook in our lives. The job that sustained us was a gift, but the Lord was the giver. The relationship that anchored us was a gift, but the Lord was the giver. The season of certainty, the years of stability, the chapter of life that felt secure, all of it was a gift, but the Lord was the giver. And when those brooks dry up and As they sometimes do, the gift may be changing, but the giver never does. So if you are standing beside a drying brook today, hear what the text is whispering to you. The God who provided through the brook is still your God. The God who appointed the brook is still appointing the next stage. The God who gave the gift is still the giver, and he is not changed. The brook will sometimes change, but the God who provides through it never does. So look back with me at the moment we entered this lesson together. We begin with a question. What happens when something God gives us begins to disappear? What happens when the brook dries up? And the text has answered that question. Not by telling us our brooks will never dry up because they sometimes do, but by showing us a God whose word can be trusted when those changes come. A God whose faithfulness includes both judgment and provision. A God whose reliability holds whether the brook is flowing or whether the brook is drying up. And that reliability reaches its highest demonstration at the cross of Jesus Christ. For centuries God had promised a Savior, and in the fullness of time Galatians four verse four, God did exactly what he said he would do. He sent his son. His son entered the world the prophets had described. He lived the life the scriptures had foretold. He died the death the scriptures had predicted, and on the third day exactly when he said he rose from the dead. The God who proved his faithfulness by raising Jesus from the dead can be trusted when the brooks in our lives begin to dry up. If God kept his word about his son, that the Son would be crucified, buried and raised, then God will keep His word about everything He has promised His people. The God who could be trusted at the cross can be trusted at Kirith. The God who could be trusted at the empty tomb can be trusted beside any drying brook. So whatever season you are walking through today, hear what the text has been saying. When the brook dries up, trust the God who always keeps his word. Trust the provider more than the provision. Trust the giver more than the gift. Trust the God whose reliability has been proven across centuries through Joshua, through Moses, through Elijah and supremely through the resurrection of his son. Because the truth that has carried us through this entire lesson, and the truth that will carry us through every lesson to come is the same truth that carried Elijah through Kirith. The living God can be trusted in every season because he is always faithful to his word. Let us pray. Father, we thank you that you are the God whose word is reliable, the God who kept your word through Joshua, the God who kept your word through Moses, the God who kept your word through Elijah, and the God who kept your word supremely through Jesus Christ, who died, was buried, and rose on the third day exactly as you promised. For every listener standing beside a drying brook today, comfort them. Remind them that the gift may be changing, but the giver never does. For every listener who has been quietly trusting the provision more than the provider, gently teach them what you taught Elijah. For every listener whose faith has grown quiet in the season of the drying brook, meet them, Lord, remind them that you have not gone silent, strengthen their grip on your word when their grip on everything else is loosening. And for every listener who has never come to your son, draw them, Lord, open their hearts to the gospel, give them the courage and the love for you to come. We thank you that no matter what season we are in, you remain who you have always been, the living God, faithful to your word in every generation. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, the supreme proof of your reliability, we pray. Amen. Thank you for spending this time with me on Sunday Renewal. My prayer is that today's episode encouraged your heart, strengthened your faith, and reminded you that God is still at work, redeeming, restoring, and shaping your story for his purpose. If this message spoke to you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with someone in your life, a friend, a family member, or a coworker, because God often uses one simple conversation to bring renewal to someone else's journey. And if you have a moment, leaving a review on Apple Podcasts truly helps others discover messages of hope and faith when they need them most. Before you go, I want to invite you into a deeper journey. I've created a free five-day devotional called Renaming Your Story from Pain to Purpose to Legacy. In just 10 minutes a day, it's designed to help you walk through healing old wounds, breaking false labels, and stepping into the fruitfulness and legacy God intends. If there's someone you love who needs encouragement, healing, or direction, or if this journey is for you, this resource is available now. Just click the link in the show notes to get started. Remember this God is present, your past does not define you, and your story is still in motion. Until next time, walk by faith, stay open to God, and trust Him with the next step. God bless you.