Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Have you ever wondered why people genuinely find the answer to that question puzzling?
“And God created…every living creature that moveth…and every winged fowl after his kind…. [22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply.”
Genesis 1:21-22a, emphasis mine
The answer is only puzzling if you don’t know what God’s Word says about it. The chicken came first.
Knowing God’s answer is not the only thing that matters, though. Once you have an answer from Him, your obedience to His Word becomes the question. In Andrew’s Lessons from Elijah teaching, he demonstrates how Elijah’s life teaches that both hearing and continuing to obey God’s voice are important.
Elijah “appears on the scene with no introduction” (p. 1) during a time of wickedness:
“And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. [31] …he took to wife Jezebel…and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.”
1 Kings 16:30-31
The word of drought that God gave Elijah to declare to Ahab changed everyone’s circumstances—even his own. Today, too, in a climate of confusion and darkness, believers are looking for answers. But as Andrew puts it, that’s not really the problem:
“It’s not a lack of words [or answers] from God that is the problem; it’s the failure of people to realize what they have in God’s Word and [to] act on it that is the problem today” (p. 3, brackets mine).
In other words, the real problem lies in believing an answer God’s provided and taking the next step of obedience to what He has said:
“We want to have the entire picture before we step out on God’s Word. Elijah didn’t have that! He didn’t know that the Lord was going to make supernatural provision for him. He just had one word from God: ‘Tell the king a drought is coming.’ Then after he was faithful to go and speak forth that word, God revealed the next step” (p. 7).
I faced a time like this in my own life. In March 2013, I attended Charis Campus Days in Colorado, thinking I was just there to find out about distance learning. In one of the sessions, Andrew said, “Someone here is thinking— I can’t come to school because I have older parents, my son will have to switch schools, I have a business, I have a dog…” I felt like there was a giant neon arrow pointing down at me. I knew God was speaking. Then Andrew said, “If that’s you, stand up.” I felt as though I had on a 100-pound lead suit. I struggled to stand and was the only one standing. Slowly others stood. He prayed that we would never forget the moment that we got the call to come to school.
When I went home, I found out that there were real obstacles to my obeying God. However, as I faced each situation, it was as if I had been given a machete and was hacking my way through a jungle. For me, it became a question of continual obedience. By August of that same year, my belongings were in a trailer going west, and my son and I were traveling toward Colorado in a car the Lord had provided for me just two weeks earlier.
Andrew teaches through Elijah’s life that God sends provision to the place He intends you to be. He calls this principle “a place called ‘there.'” Because God is good, He may give you supernatural incentives to make your obedience easier, but—
“Your place called ‘there’ isn’t necessarily a specific geographic location. It’s often more an attitude of wholeheartedly moving toward doing what God has said for you to do” (p. 21).
The outcomes of my obedience have been wonderful. My three years at Charis Bible College healed and changed me. The Lord has positioned me in the Andrew Wommack Ministries Publications Department, from where I am blogging today. Lessons from Elijah makes it clear that you will find God’s answers for your life—obedience is the only real question.
