In the Book of I Kings, the prophet Elijah was sent by God to Zarephath. "Zarephath" was a place, but means: refinement. The command to travel to Zarephath was just one in a series of directives given by God that was meant to refine Elijah's faith. Whether Elijah was aware or not, God was preparing the prophet for a future of important and influential work. Important and influential work that could not have been accomplished without refined faith.
We are often unwitting participants of our own spiritual growth. We have to awaken-spiritually to realize that our life is not random or irrelevant but actually charted and purposeful. With that realization, our perception of life changes: life stops appearing as a loud and chaotic park and reveals itself more accurately as a training course. The training course of life produces refinement of faith.
Elijah allowed God to lead him along the path of refinement, even though that path frequently looked like a dead end street to desperation. He could not have refined his faith when it came time to fulfill his purpose; he had to rely on faith when it came to that. The time for refinement was along the journey leading up to fulfillment. We refine our faith as we submit to the will of God, but we rely on faith as we do the work of God.
From I Kings 17:1-24, five points made by Elijah's journey of refinement allow us to make inferences about our own. With refined faith, the scope of our purpose grows and so too does our ability to fulfill it.
God will give you power within your situation to exert change over your situation
Faith will equip you with tools you never thought you'd wield, and influence you never thought you'd have
The kingdom of Israel had unraveled. A corrupt king named Ahab abandoned the word and will of God and the kingdom subsequently devolved into a wicked place. Its ears were closed to God's commandments and to His reprimands. For their own good, God decided to make them listen. Simultaneously, God decided to make a man for them to listen to: Elijah.
So God instituted a drought. No longer would they be able to live wickedly and with the resources to fuel and enable their corrupt behavior. He also instituted one man who had power over the drought. The arrangement of these circumstances suddenly made the word of God, through a prophet of God, something the kingdom was keenly interested in. God induced their realization that not only did they need Him, they could not ignore him any longer.
A fierce and desperate search began for Elijah, who by God, was instructed to hide. The kingdom of Israel would have to endure the drought; just as their kingdom and behavior had been devoid of righteousness, so would there land for a time be devoid of rain. The rain, a crucial, and life-giving element would serve as a symbol for the other crucial, life-giving element: the word of God. Just as they could not live prosperously without rain, neither could they live prosperously without God.
You may not identify yourself as a prophet of God, and in your life, you probably will never have to personally confront a king. But no matter who you are, you will at some point in life find yourself with a circumstance that desperately needs change. And if you're reasonable, you will also find yourself to be wholly inadequate at fixing that situation. But your willing and faithful heart will move God to do for you as He did for Elijah: He will make your voice the voice the people around you need to hear and the one they are forced to hear, as long as your voice is carrying God's message.
People will not necessarily, suddenly be grateful for or receptive to your voice but they will hear it. And in hearing it, will finally receive the message that God intends for them to hear. God will arrange a situation so that the people around you need what only your influence provides. The situation might not readily operate smoothly and efficient but because of you, your delivery of God's word, the gears will begin to turn.
God can bend and rewrite possibilities to ensure you receive what you need
God arranges surprising details to ensure unforeseen outcomes
God sent Elijah to the Brook Cherith, a little stream of water that connected to the greater body of water that is the Jordan River. Even in seclusion, Elijah himself was connected to the greater body, the greater source: God. Understand that God did not institute Elijah as a king. Elijah was a conduit, a vessel through which God's word reached the people who needed to hear it. God did not establish Elijah as king, oust Ahab, and form a dictatorship over the people. Instead, God made a tweak in the region and then promptly instructed Elijah to hide... by a tiny little brook to subsist on scraps.
God works in the details, under the radar, making small tweaks to enact big change. While in your position as one of those tiny-tweak-makers, it is important that you remember that you're still connected to the greater body: to God. It could have gotten lonely for Elijah. He could have easily felt at once used and useless. But Elijah's personal needs were still important to God and your personal needs are important to God too, as important as the needs of kingdoms.
God told Elijah to drink from the brook. He also told Elijah that He would command the ravens to feed him. The brook was steadily running dry and it was (is) unheard of to be fed by birds. But this impossible, desperate situation served the process of refinement of faith. Elijah trusted and he was fed.
Perhaps no bird has ever brought you dinner, but know that God makes divine arrangements to ensure that you get what you need. Routinely. Precisely when you need it and in the necessary amounts. Little things that could seem like fortunate coincidences to untrained eyes are actually God working details into your favor. And when you learn that God is working the details even in the small moments, you learn to rely on him in the big ones. Elijah had plenty of those coming, and so do you.
God directs your steps to new places
You will be led to the the places that will best serve your growth
After awhile, the brook ran dry. God was ready to move him forward into a new course of refinement. But forward movement brought Elijah into foreign territory; a new place to refine his faith in a new way. Since Elijah had seemingly graduated from the feeble little brook, one would expect that God would deliver him into an upgraded situation. And He did, but that upgraded situation came in the form of a ramshackle dwelling place owned by a destitute widow and her starving son.
God will not lead you into places that serve your status. He will lead you into places that serve your growth. Elijah was a renowned prophet of God and righteous man; if God had served Elijah's status, it would definitely not have resulted in a mere hovel. God served Elijah's growth potential instead.
When you pass a section of the course of spiritual refinement, God will move you forward. But forward is indeed still foreign. Just because you trusted God with your former situation does not guarantee that you will trust Him with your future one. But it should. And it has to in order for you to acknowledge, appreciate and utilize each new place or season of life for what it actually is: a new element of the training course. Every new place He brings you comes with new areas of faith to be strengthened. Areas that need to be strengthened in your present in order for you to fulfill purpose in your future. Powerfully and adeptly.
Every new place God brings you might not look like something that reflects your spiritual status but most certainly does. God led Elijah to a hovel. God trusted Elijah a great deal to believe that Elijah would appreciate a situation that almost no one (maybe no one else) on earth ever would appreciate. To whom much is given is often a verse interpreted in terms of money and influence, and rightly so. But sometimes God gives much learning material, much training, to people He expects will learn much from it. God led Jesus to similar places: to the sick and dying, to the sinful and corrupt, to death on the cross. But God led Jesus to those places, and Elijah to the widow, because those places reflected the size not of their status but of their faith.
God can make something out of nothing, and more out of less
Full faith will not produce an empty storehouse
Elijah would have been hungry after the journey to the widow's home. Weary, and in need of sustenance. When you request sustenance from God, you would probably never expect Him to lead you to someone who has none. But that is exactly what God did for Elijah. The answer to his need for sustenance came in the form of a destitute, widowed mother one meal away from death by starvation.
A new element of faith for Elijah: did he trust God enough to ask for food from a woman who barely had enough for her child? The purpose of this situation is not to encourage us to lean on people who are destitute. The purpose of this situation is to encourage us to lean on God so heavily, to trust God so emphatically, that we know our provision is dependent on God, not a storehouse; on God, not a person; on God; not a place.
So Elijah asked the woman for a small portion of her small portion: a little cake of flour cooked with oil. And he promised her, with faith in God, that if she did, her flour bin would not empty. Her cruse of oil would not go dry. She would eat, her son would eat, and they would have perpetual meals instead of a last meal.
God will make a nobody into a somebody. The least into the greatest. More out of less. Give Him what you have and He will grow it. He will forge a path at the spot in your life you thought was a dead end. All you have to do is donate what you have to His purposes. This widowed woman donated what she had to God's purposes: she fed and housed a prophet of God that would go on to change the nation. Support God's purposes and be supported by God.
God can reverse and revive circumstances that are dead
Your journey in faith does not result in irrelevance, destruction or death
Elijah had to learn to trust that God would not lead him into desolation, nor would He abandon him there. To do that, Elijah began perhaps the most harrowing of lessons on his spiritual training course: the death of the widow's son. Understandably, the mother went berserk. And though he contained and channeled it better, so did Elijah.
Is the length of your trust in God as long as His path? Are you able to trust that the outcome of situations in your life are in alignment with His plan, even if you do not understand why? Elijah brought the boy up to a private place and began an earnest prayer. God revived the boy.
*Always remember that the world's concept of death of the body does not apply to the life of the soul. After life on earth, our soul begins a new iteration of life but in spirit, with God.
Maybe your prayers are not exactly raising the dead, at least not literally speaking. But from Elijah's story God wants you to know that circumstances which seem to be dead can be revived by Him. A soured marriage, a friendship in a rocky place. A lost self-confidence. Crippling loneliness. Change that will not seem to come. All of those situations, and more, can be reversed by Him. When you put effort into God's purposes, blessings will come into fruition.
Because faith sometimes takes us into such bleak places and impossible situations, we have to learn that He will never lead us nowhere. He will never grow us to no purpose. He does not build to destroy. He does not hand life over to death. Elijah was about to confront some seriously dangerous and powerful people. His situation would appear more bleak and more impossible than it ever had before. God knew that He had to believe going into that situation, that God could bring him through it.
God is not constantly preparing us for dark times. There are great, bright blessings we need preparation for as well. As we become spouses and parents, friends and coworkers, neighbors and professionals, we require new skills. Dark or light, in all situations children of God have to learn that He will be with them before and throughout. God is calling you into Zarephath, into refinement, will you meet Him there?