A Time to Ask

There are times of upgrade that actually feel like a stripping away. All that was comfortable and familiar was taken from the Israelites as they set out for the wilderness (“We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.” – Numbers 11:5). The lack around them began to make them forget that God’s purpose was for them (“You grumbled in your tents and said, ‘The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.'” – Deuteronomy 1:27). 

Elijah found himself in a similar time in 1 Kings 17. The chapter opens with the prophet announcing to King Ahab that a drought would be coming in the wake of Ahab leading the nation further into idol worship. A drought from the Lord for your enemies doesn’t sound so bad, but that also meant all around Elijah would be scarcity. 

Sometimes we find ourselves in a stripped-down, barren season- like the Israelites or like Elijah- after being obedient to the Lord. Like the Israelites, the backdrop of wilderness can cause us to feel like “the Lord hates us” (Deut. 1:27) or to wonder where we went wrong. But both of these stories show a stripping down as a precursor to promise…not a punishment. Also, in both accounts, the Lord always provides for His people amidst scarcity. 

For Elijah, the provision began with a word from the Lord that he was to go to an appointed ravine and there the ravens would bring him meat and bread, and he would drink from the spring (1 Kings 17:2-6). In this specific window of time, obedience for Elijah looked like going. It looked like being in the place that the Lord told him to stay. Beyond that, it was a simple receiving, like the Israelites with the manna. No earning it. No asking for it or chasing it down. Just positioning himself according to the Lord’s direction and waiting for the promised sustenance to come. We have all experienced times where the Lord has had us wait and receive, but some of us get stuck here. We begin to think that for the rest of forever, we stay and wait, and whatever the Lord wants us to have will just float down to us. Elijah reminds us that while God does operate that way for some seasons, He also is the God of the ask.

Elijah is staying in the ravine in obedience, and everything he needs is sent to him. Until one day it isn’t. The brook dries up due to the drought (verse 7). What is so incredibly relatable in this account is that the Lord didn’t tell Elijah this was coming. Many times it happens the same way for us. We’re going along, pursuing the last word the Lord gave us in obedience. Then a shift happens, and it just runs dry. We’re left thinking “what happened?” Or “did I miss it?” The answer to those questions for Elijah from our outside perspective was obviously “no”. 

Then God speaks. He speaks a new instruction. He doesn’t explain why the brook dried up. When our brooks dry up, we often ask, “Why?” We want to understand the process of the Lord. But it is our prompt readiness to move and obey based on a deep-rooted trust that actually helps us pursue the promise- not an explanation. 

What God does say is what to do. He instructs in 1 Kings 17:8-11: “Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

In this season, the Lord is highlighting and emphasizing the “hard ask”. It is much more comfortable when the Lord tells us to wait and receive, and, like Elijah by the brook, sometimes He does. But other times, for the same breakthrough, we have to ask. For Elijah, it wasn’t just an easy ask. He had to ask a starving single mother to give him what the Lord had been effortlessly providing at the ravine. It seems- logically- like a downgrade for both of them. The ways of the Holy Spirit, however, are rarely logical. 

As the story continues, Elijah’s Holy-Spirit-prompted ask not only fulfills His request, but there is a communal blessing in the ask. The widow and her son are blessed with abundance for the duration of the drought. The whole community is blessed with the miraculous when he raises the widow’s son from the dead. All of this occurred during a time of famine. 

The Lord reminded me through this that there are times when the Holy Spirit will prompt us to ASK. Ask, seek, knock, be persistent, be obnoxious, and all of the things Jesus taught us about prayer in Luke 11:1-13. Those “asks” are rarely comfortable, logical, or easy. Perhaps the Holy Spirit has put a dream on your heart. Something you’d like to begin knocking on doors in the direction of. But it feels too big, too hard, too impractical. Let me encourage you with this. If the Holy Spirit is taking you, like Elijah, from a season of wait and receive to a season of ask and advance, it is because the blessing is for more than just you. God is big enough to work community miracles through individual “asks”. Maybe what is on your heart is a supernatural upgrade the Lord has waiting for your entire community. Whatever move of obedience (wait and receive, or ask and advance) that the Lord has for you this season, be expectant. You may be in a time of stripping away all around you, but there is a miracle the Lord is working in the midst of it. Lord, help us shift our focus from grumbling about the stripping away happening around us to trusting in faith in the upgrade you’re doing within us.

Ask the Holy Spirit:

1. What is a dream or an “ask” that you’ve planted in my heart?

2. Would you have me wait and receive or ask, seek, and knock in this season?

3. How would you like me to respond in faith so that my community can be blessed?