More Water

Hi Downey Church friends and family! It is a pleasure to share the kid's story with you guys again. Alright, so this one is one of my new favorite stories. This is the story of Elijah. Elijah with a J, not Elijah with an S.

So Elijah with a J. We're going to cue to the part where, I mean, his whole life is really amazing. But I'm going to cue to the part where he is on Mount Carmel and he has asked King Ahab to bring his 400 prophets that serve Baal. And he says, you know what? I want to challenge you. I want to see if your God is really the true God or if the God that we worship is really the true God. And so my challenge is that now.Let's meet at the top of the mountain. Let's set up an altar. Let's put our offering on it. And then we're going to call out to our God. And our God should be able to listen and send down the fire, showing that he receives the offering and that he is a true God. Are you ready for that challenge?

And so King Ahab's like, oh, yeah, piece of cake. Plus, my god, he's the god of fire. So he should easily be able to do that. No problem there.

So those 400 prophets are there and they're praying and they're calling out to god. They're asking their false god, you know, send fire, send fire. And they're doing all these terrible things to their bodies because they're trying to show that they are god. Sacrificing themselves so that their boss god can send fire.

But nothing happens. So then Elijah tells he says, Okay you guys have tried for long enough now it's my turn. I'm gonna bring some water and I’m gonna make sure that it's really nice and wet and I want four jars.

And so then they go and they bring the four jars and then he pours the jars of water over the offering and the altar that he has. And they even dig a trench around the the altar and so they make like a little swimming pool

And then he says, You know what? This is not enough water go back and bring me some more water. Until they fill up 12 jars of water and remember they're in a severe drought. So filling up something with water means that he really trusts that God's going to come through for him. So he does. And he asks God, hey, God, send down that fire. And he does. And he consumes it. And not only does he consume it, but it says that it, that the fire that came down burned everything. It burned the offering. It burned the altar. It burned the water. It even burned the dirt. And usually dirt helps to put out fires. But in this instance, God burned the fire. I mean, burned the dirt with a fire, which was really cool..

Then after that, we see that he, Elijah goes away and he hides in the wilderness after his life is threatened. And he just feels so crummy. And he just says, man, I just, I feel lonely. I don't want to live anymore. I just, I feel so bad.

And God meets him there too. And God says, God sends, it says the angel of the Lord came down to him, gave him bread. Fresh baked bread created by the angel of the Lord and he had water and then he was told go back to sleep get some more rest and he got rest. And God didn't say hello I'm right here with you Elijah! Like pay attention! I'm right here. He didn't scold him. Didn't get angry with him. He didn't make him feel bad He was just there and he provided. He provided food, he provided drink, and he provided, told him to have some more rest. And then he woke him up a second time and then fed him again another fresh baked bread made by the angel of the Lord. And he ate it and he drank the water and it was so filling to him that he was able to walk for 40 days and 40 nights without having any food.

I just thought that was so beautiful how God met him at his highest point when he was at the top of that mountain, just feeling so confident that God would send the fire so much so that he would ask, hey, I know we're all out of water. It's been three and a half years since we've had any water, any rain come down, but bring me four jars of water to just drench this altar and the offering. And then to go to being saved to feeling so sorry for himself and for his life and not wanting to live and God meeting him there. And it just reminds me that we have a loving father, that it doesn't matter where we are, whether we're in our highest point or our lowest point, God meets us where we are and he loves us and he cares for us. And I just thought that was so beautiful that I really wanted to share that with you. I hope that fills you.

All right, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you for always being with us. It doesn't matter where we are. You always give us what we need. And we're so grateful for that, Lord. Please be with us this day and every day. In your sweet name we pray. Amen.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that.