There is the need for us to understand that there is natural side to our supernatural God. We know that God created the natural. Let me restate that the natural world was created by God so you get it. God is supernatural and He lives in the supernatural but He it was who created the natural. He created the natural through the supernatural.
We understand that anything that God created was good. Therefore the natural is good even though the natural in some cases was corrupted after the fall. We live in the natural and we must respect the natural. We must also understand the connection and the difference between the natural and the supernatural. That understanding must include how we are to relate the natural with the supernatural and the supernatural with the natural.
Elijah Predicts a Drought
The story in 1 Kings 17:1-21 is illustrative of the naturalness of God and how we can transit from the natural to the supernatural. For better understanding, I would like to quote the entire chapter here together with the verse layout.
1Ki 17:1-21 “And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying. Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word
of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh
in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”
The Widow of Zarephath
1Ki 17:8-16 “And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah.”
Elijah Raises the Widow’s Son
1Ki 17:17 “And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And
he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again. And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of
the LORD in thy mouth is truth.”
Elijah had predicted a draught that was to last for three years. God tells him to go to the Brook Cherith to hide himself and to receive nourishment. He would be supernaturally fed for quite sometime by a Raven. His meal would consist of bread and meat delivered fresh by ravens and then fresh water from the Brook Cherith for drinking.
But the Brook Dried Up
One day, the Brook took a final journey away from Elijah – the brook literarily dried up. God did not stop the Brook from drying up. It dried up by itself as nature cringed under the weight of the draught. One would have thought that God who made the ravens to supernaturally deliver sustenance to Elijah would have prevented the Brook from drying up. But God didn’t. He chose not to. He allowed nature to take its course. It is where nature stops that the supernatural begins. Making a Brook to continue to flow should have been far easier than making ravens deliver fresh bread and meat twice a day to Elijah. This is what we mean by the natural side of God. Many times God allows the natural to take its course. It is for the same reason that evil thrives and people wonder why God allows it. God sometimes allows evil to thrive to give room for our better judgments and ofcourse our judgment doesn’t always turn out to be good judgement. In any event, God didn’t stop the natural course of the Brook Cherith from drying up. The Brook dried up and on that account the ravens stopped bringing food. Elijah had to move on. God told Elijah to go to the widow at Zarephath. God told him that He had commanded a widow in Zarephath to feed him. When the Brook dried up God respected it. God respected the natural course of the Brook drying up. The Supernatural May Not Happen without the Natural God created the Natural. God respects the natural because there is a place for the natural. The supernatural may not take place unless the natural is exhausted. God used natural ravens to supernaturally deliver victuals to Elijah.
There are loads of resources in the Natural that God Himself utilises. He made them available and if we don’t fully exhaust the natural resources God has given to us, He may not make available His supernatural resources. Many times, we do not fully utilise the natural resources that God has placed at our disposal. There is so much positioned around us that we can use for our needs and wants. But unfortunately, a lot of times, we lose sight of the things in our surroundings and reach, and then, we begin to pray for miracles. Without realising that God doesn’t waste resources. He never does. Recall how Jesus would tell His disciples to gather the fragments and left overs of food that He supernaturally multiplied? God never wastes resources. It was when the Brook-resource dried up that God provided an alternative in the Widow of Zarephath. You see that? The supernatural always begins where the natural stops. And that is how it should be. The supernatural takes over when natural resources are spent. Sometimes, we do not see the miracle we desire because we have not used the materials we acquired.
The Widow’s Natural Resources are Running Out
At a much different location from that of the Brook Cherith is a Widow whose natural resource of food is running thin. She is not going to experience the supernatural unless her natural resources are spent so Elijah must hurry. The Brook must also dry up
else, a widow and her only son would starve to death. Elijah arrives eventually after God told him that He has commanded the widow to feed him and just before she took her last meal with her son. Elijah knocks at the door and the widow opens the door. Elijah requests for water but quickly adds a further request for a meal. The widow’s resources must be spent for the supernatural to be activated. The poor widow is not ready to share their last meal let alone give away the whole meal to a strange and intruding prophet. But God had commanded. She may not have heard God’s command as we may assume, otherwise she wouldn’t be arguing with Elijah, nonetheless, God gave the command and what must be done must be done.
The Exchange
God was about to change the widow’s story but unless she spent up her natural resources, she wouldn’t see the supernatural” Sometimes, if you don’t throw the old away, you won’t see the new. Except a corn of wheat falls down to the ground and dies it abides alone. Something natural has to die for the supernatural to be birthed. The life in a seed never dies, it only takes on a new casing. Many times for the supernatural to happen, the natural has to die. There’s sometimes got to be an exchange for supernatural changes to occur. As Jesus is about to feed well over four thousand men excluding women and children, His disciples
after a careful search, single out a boy having five loaves and two fishes. The story is in Mark 6:38 and Matt. 14:17. The loaves and two fishes are the natural exchange that would give birth to the supernatural before supper is served. It is when the natural meets the supernatural that we say that there is a miracle. When God formed Man He needed to breathe into the natural man a supernatural breath. As soon as the supernatural breath of God interacted with the natural carcass, life came forth. It is the interaction between the natural and the supernatural that gives birth to miracles! The widow could have saved their last meal for herself and her son and then they could have both died. But she gave it in exchange for the supernatural experiences she is about to have. God knew well ahead that her resources were about to dry up and He sent Elijah to the rescue. The reason God sent Elijah is because God needs a natural agent to materialise the supernatural. Otherwise God could have just made it happen for the woman. But doing so would not have connected the glory to God. A man may sometimes need another man to receive from God so that he’d know that God has done it.
The wise widow sacrificed her life and that of her son’s for Elijah in what was a divine exchange to save their own lives now and then ofcourse to save her son’s life much later when he suddenly died. When calamity eventually struck, Elijah placed the young boy on his bed, prayed and laid over him and the boy arose. The supernatural resurrection of the widow’s son was made possible because of the exchange the widow made much earlier by giving up her last meal.
The Necessity
The supernatural happens mostly when it is necessary. The supernatural is not for showing off power for the sake of it. It is operated out of necessity. God is not a magician. He does things on purpose. Where the supernatural is needed He sure makes it happen but when not needed the
supernatural wouldn’t just happen because God doesn’t waste resources.
My Encounter
Once in a while I get led or I go on my own volition to a mountain away to seek the face of God. On one particular occasion I drove in my Passat sedan on a 4 hours journey alone to a Mountain in South West Nigeria. About 3 hours into my journey, unknown to me my car overheated as I drove on the freeway. About an hour to my destination I saw written in bold letters the word ‘STOP’ on the car’s instrument consol. It happened in the middle of nowhere on a stretch of a freeway notorious for kidnappings and killings. In Nigeria you don’t see police where you should see them not to talk about in the middle of nowhere. I pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car and tried to get water to replenish the radiator. I finally found some water but the car wouldn’t start.
My case is made worse now because I am driving an uncommon car. The more common cars in Nigeria are mostly Japanese cars such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda and so forth, and for those types of cars you could run into a road side mechanic and get help almost anywhere but certainly not a Passat sedan. Where was I to get a mechanic in this middle of nowhere to fix my passat. But I had peace. I refused to be worried. I knew that if you wanted to confront the devil you’d better be ready for the worse. And, I was
sure that I didn’t know what to do. While thinking about what God was going to do to get me out of the situation, I suddenly saw two guys on a motorbike on the opposite side of the road. Suddenly they turned and started coming my way. They were surely coming to harm or rob me. When they reached me the bike rider told me that he is a specialist in the repair of Passat products. What!! He said that the only brand of cars he repaired was Passat. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This had to be
supernatural. How could a mechanic for Passat possibly be in the middle of nowhere and in such a dangerous place as where I was? The mechanic checked the car and told me to forget it – the gasket had blown and it was getting dark. He advised that
nothing absolutely could be done that evening. We pushed the car into some tall grasses to conceal it and then left it right there.
The mechanic at that point asked his friend he was carrying on his motorbike to find his way back to town and he gave me a lift. We rode for about thirty minutes into town to get me a cab going to my Mountain destination. I left the car key with this
unknown mechanic who came the next day to tow the car so he could replace the blown gasket while I was on the mountain. Three days after, I had to come down from the mountain because I needed to be on air live on radio for my weekly PrayerLikeRain
broadcast and to receive the car. Unfortunately, the car refused to start after he replaced the gasket and changed all he needed to change. The only option suggested was to connect the car to a computer for reprogramming. Where were we to get a computer in this remote town to reset or reprogramme a passat car? I abandoned the car eventually and headed for the motor park to get a bus going to Lagos the commercial capital of Nigeria.
When I got to the park there was just one remaining vehicle going to Lagos. It was now about 6:00pm. My broadcast was for 10:00pm. And I am in this park with only one vehicle left for the day with the last seat already taken by another passenger. The supernatural happened again. God stepped in without me asking because He was ahead. One of the passengers decided to step down for me. That night I got into the broadcast studio 09:59pm – just a minute before my broadcast! In Psalms 46:1 it says “…God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” God is actually with us and present all the time when we face challenges. He is never absent. He is present and right there while we are in trouble wishing and hoping that we would use up the resources He already made available which He Himself has positioned around us. When we have tried our best and used up our natural resources He steps in and He would always step in.
But we must use up the natural resources He places at our reach. It is for us to find our tree of life for ourselves. Adam and Eve didn’t realise that the tree of life was in the same garden they’d probably been in for a long time until Satan led them astray to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There was crude oil from the time of the stone-age but we only knew it had been there after it was discovered. Do not say you do not have. God always makes provisions for us. You may not see it immediately but it is sure somewhere. Ask God to show you where He kept the resources you need. It was when the natural resource of the widow
finished that God supernaturally provided supplies. Sometimes we query God for our pains, failures, troubles etc. But have we exhausted the natural resources we have that God gave to us? Look around you, use up your natural resource before you can see
the supernatural. The supernatural is only required and necessary when there are no natural alternatives. Jesus wouldn’t have walked on water had there been boat companies still operating at the time He got to the river side. He would have rented a boat or a ferry to meet His disciples. He only walked on water because there were no more boats. If there was a coin in the bag with Judas, Peter needn’t have gone with a fish hook to the river to fetch money to pay their taxes. The supernatural begins where the natural fails. This is what we mean by the natural side of God.
Let Us Pray
Thank you heavenly Father for making me understand that there is a natural side to you. Thank you for creating the natural. Help me to be conscious of and using the natural resources you gave me in Jesus Name. Amen!
Author
Apostle Anthony Ifidon Esezobor
