Give it up, it won't kill you

Have you ever had nothing?
I mean nothing at all.
Not a dream, a hope, a plan?
Ever been desperate to the point of death?
If I don't have this I will die?

I mean desperate like making light from dark.
Life from death kind of desperate.



The Bible records in the first book of Kings chapter 17 a remarkable tale of just what kind of trust God asks of us...and proves he is good for it.

Elijah the prophet was sent on a rather unpopular mission to call a nation to repentance and announce a drought. No rain meant starvation and death...humiliation because God had turned his back. God told him he would be taken care of. He would drink from a nearly dry brook and the only food would be delivered to him by ravens. Elijah had to trust the water would hold and the birds would come.

He did and went
It did he drank
They did he ate.

Eventually the brook dried up and God provided another way even more ridiculous than a mud puddle and birds 

Elijah, I have a desperate woman who is near death. She has no one to care for her. All of her means are about to run out. Go to her and ask her to feed you.

He trusted and asked, she trusted and gave. God provided.

I ask you.
Will you have the same trust?
Will you take what God gives you?
It may be food from a mud puddle and scrapes from a birds mouth but if that is what he gives you will you take it in this life? Is God enough for you?

Elijah and the widow were both desperate and trusted and God provided.

You and I are in the same place of dependence, we just fool ourselves.
We are dependent upon God for food and water.
But even more so, we are dependent upon him for salvation. And just like he provided food for the prophet and widow and her son, he provides the impossible way for us.

Our life comes from trust, obedience and death. Not ours, but Christ's.

 [Jesus} Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Jesus gave all he had in trust and lived.
God asks the same of us.

I did, and went to God.
Jesus died in my stead and I live.
I gave up my life, and saved it.
...the option is there for all