Priscilla Shirer - God Has a Purpose for This Season of Your Life
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Summary
In this message, the preacher encourages believers to embrace the often overlooked seasons of private dependence on God and close-knit community ministry, using Elijah’s journey in 1 Kings 17 as the key Scripture. He stresses that true spiritual maturity and Christlikeness are forged first in hidden places—like alone at the brook Cherith and then serving a widow in Zarephath—before one is ready for public stands like Mount Carmel. The core challenge is not to rush or skip these formative stages, because without their deep work of character, the spotlight of wider influence or cultural pressure will overwhelm and destroy rather than glorify God.
Encouragement and Challenge in Discipleship
I just wanted to give you a little bit of encouragement and also a challenge. To be honest with you, I’ve been thinking a lot about discipleship, about growth, about spiritual growth. That’s basically what discipleship is: it’s about fixing your eyes on Jesus and, through the ups and downs in different seasons of life, becoming more like Christ. It’s the whole goal of sanctification; it’s the whole goal of our life with Christ that, until we see him face to face, we are becoming more like him.
Reflecting on Seasons of Life
So, I’ve been thinking about how the progression happens over the course of life. I’ve got to be honest with you; I think the reason why this has been on my mind is that I’m headed into my 50th year of life, and every now and then it kind of occurs to me, «Oh, I used to be youngish, and now I’m not old, but I’m oldish.» So, I start thinking about those seasons of life where I encountered people who helped to challenge me and helped me see clearly what it was like to be conformed into His image, to reflect Christlikeness.
It happened in the ups of life, but honestly it also happened in the downs of life. It’s not just the mountains; it’s the valleys. It’s the parts of our lives we do not prefer, the parts of our lives we wouldn’t ask to go through again, the parts of our lives we were praying God would hurry up and get us through real quick so we could get on to the good stuff.
Growth in Hard Seasons
But we don’t realize until hindsight that there was good stuff happening when we were in those seasons of pain or disappointment or loneliness, or seasons where we felt like things weren’t flourishing and being cultivated in the way that we would have preferred. It’s there that we learned endurance, where our character was conformed to the image of Christ, where we learned patience, where we learned how to have our faith fortified and not need to have the approval of people because we were all by ourselves, and the Lord made us depend on him. That happens most frequently in the hard seasons.
Looking Back on Spiritual Journey
So anyway, as I’ve been kind of looking back on the 25 years that I’ve been in full-time vocational ministry, but really looking back to the season when I was about 8 to 10 years old when I came to the Lord as my Savior—then, you know, went through those teenage years, and I was doing the most during my teenage years, and then my 20s and 30s and all through my 40s—I’ve been thinking a lot about this maturity growth, the stages of our walk with God.
Elijah as a Model of Growth
One of the narratives in Scripture, one of the personalities in the Old Testament that most gives me a picture of this and to whom I’m most endeared is Elijah. I had the privilege of writing an entire Bible study on a portion of the narrative of Elijah, and man, I enjoyed every moment of that writing process because even as I’m writing or studying something, God is speaking to me, challenging me, and giving me direction and insight.
Here’s something about the arc of Elijah’s story that, if you’re not looking at it comprehensively, you can kind of miss it. I mean, most of us know the name and know the highlights of his story, but if you’re not looking at the whole arc of when he comes into view in the Scriptures and then sort of matures into these positions where he’s in front of a lot of people, where he is the declarer of God’s truth in the midst of a cultural decline, if you don’t see the whole arc, you might miss the progression.
Elijah’s Humble Beginning at Cherith
You might think he just arrived on Mount Carmel and was this majestic figure and declarer of God’s truth in the midst of all that adversity, but he did not start there. It’s in First Kings chapter 17 where we meet him. This man, after declaring God’s word to the king, is relegated alone by himself by this brook called Cherith. He had nothing to sustain him that he could produce or generate on his own; it was a drought in the land, so there was no water in the brook.
The brook dried up, and he’s sitting there not knowing how he’s going to drink, not knowing how he’s going to get his daily bread. The Lord—oh, you’ve got to read it—it’s so great. The Lord supernaturally provides for this man. This is how the ministry of Elijah starts: it starts with just him, and he has to learn how to depend on God for his daily bread.
Not miraculous stuff that will impress other people; it’s not about other people. It’s just him. He literally needs to eat; he needs bread for the day; he needs water to drink, and his eyes are turned upwards just saying, «God, how are we going to do this?» He’s fixed his eyes on the Lord, and he learns alone at Cherith how to depend on God.
The Importance of Private Seasons
So, before Mount Carmel, before there are thousands of people not only challenging his dependence on Yahweh but also people who are going to be stirred in their own commitment to Yahweh because of his own consistency and faithfulness—before all of that publicity, he’s by himself. This is the season we don’t like: when we’re just by ourselves, when things seem smaller than we wish, when we need to count on God for literally our daily bread.
Whether it’s physical sustenance or whether it is in ministry, we’re looking for what is it that we’re going to teach in Bible study this week, and we think, «Man, things are dried up.» It’s a drought in our health, in our finances; we actually have to turn our attention to God and say, «Lord, if you don’t do it, there’s no other way.»
That is exactly where Elijah’s ministry started, and what I’m trying to say to you is that season is not a wasted season. Had it not been for Cherith, he would not have been able to have the character and the resolve and the fortitude to stand flat-footed on Mount Carmel a few chapters later and say to everybody gathered, «Choose you this day whom you’re going to serve.»
Don’t Rush the Process
You know why he had that sort of resolution? It’s because he’d been at Cherith by himself, watching God supernaturally sustain him and provide for him in the most fundamental ways. So don’t rush that season. That’s what I want to tell you: do not rush that season. If you come out of it too soon, you’re going to abort the processes that God was trying to establish in you, the character he was trying to build in you.
And let me tell you this: the spotlight that everybody wants—if that spotlight hits you before you are ready and you do not have the character for it, it will burn you to a crisp. That is honestly what we see happening so much in our culture today; it burdens me. Not kind of; it does burden me because there are many benefits to social media, but one of the negatives is that it has given everybody a platform, it’s given everybody a microphone.
It has amplified voices that are not mature enough yet to be amplified, and yet they have an audience because they’re charismatic or they’re articulate or they are handsome or beautiful, and it’s giving them a microphone. But they actually do not have a depth of relationship with the Lord that can sustain them because they aborted the process of just being with Jesus, of getting to know how to pray, to hear his voice, to know his character, to trust him for the fundamental details of their life. That is what Cherith is for.
From Cherith to Zarephath
And after Elijah is at Cherith, it says in First Kings 17, I believe verse 6, «Then the word of the Lord came to him when it was time and said to him, ‘Go now to Zarephath.’» So in Zarephath, Elijah moves from being alone to being with this widow in Zarephath. You know the story: this is the widow who does not have enough food to be able to sustain her and her son.
She says, «I, you know, we’re going to die after we eat this little cake of bread that I’m about to make. We’re going to die; I have nothing left.» And he says, «Well, take what you do have, take the jars you do have, go to all your neighbors, ” and basically the Lord does a miracle and gives her an overflow that is able to sustain her and her family for years to come.
So Elijah moves from being alone, and now he’s in the context of a family. He does not go from being alone to Mount Carmel; public ministry is not the next step. The next step is in the local context of a community, more specifically in this case in the context of a home.
Ministry in Close Community
He is ministering to the people that are up close and personal to him, not at a distance—the people who are right in his current sphere. God moves him right here and says, „Your ministry first is right here at home.“ And so is yours, and so is mine. The people that are right there underneath the roof of your own house—if they do not live with you physically, when I say „house, ” I mean within your local context.
God has given you roommates, he has given you coworkers, and he has given you people that you rub elbows with at church. They’re in your discipleship group; they are the people that are in those organizations in which you’re involved. They are the people that God has called you to disciple or maybe who will also help to disciple you.
They are right there, and he has specifically positioned you there not only because of what he’s going to equip you to do for them but because of what he’s equipped them to do for you. You need what is going to be built in you because you have rubbed elbows with the people who are in close contact with you.
The Challenge of Close Relationships
Do you ever realize, I do, how sometimes the hardest relationships are with the people who are most closely connected to us? Because those are the people you have to resolve conflict with, those are the people you have to talk through stuff with, those are the people you actually have to be patient with; those are the people with whom you have to overlook some of their deficiencies and weaknesses and extend to them absolute grace, just like the Lord has extended to you.
Those are the people you have to be merciful with, like the fruit of the Spirit: kindness, restraint, self-control—all that stuff we don’t have to do that necessarily in public ministry because it’s just a mass of people standing out there on the edge of Mount Carmel.
But when you’re in the house, when you’re in the context of personal connection with individuals who you go to church with, school with, university with, work with, do Zoom calls with day in and day out, you have to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit to relate to them in a way that honors God. That’s not just blessing them. You won’t realize until hindsight that that was maturing you.
The Vital Role of the Local Church
So if you skip Cherith, if you and I skip the value and the benefit and don’t realize the bounty that is hidden in the treasure of close local environments—which, by the way, come on, I’m kind of on my little soapbox right now—but this is, by the way, why you cannot disconnect yourself from the local church. This right here is why. Of course, Hebrews says, „Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.“
I hope that you’re enjoying all the online ministry that is available to us like never before. I hope that you’re listening to every qualified and healthy teacher, preacher, books, resources via simulcast technology that you can listen to. I hope you are so that you are being built up and matured in your faith. None of that is supposed to replace your involvement in the local church. I said involvement specifically, not attendance, but involvement.
Church is not just supposed to be about once a week you and I showing up to worship God; it is about the worship of God, but the local church also matures you. It allows you to see where there are gaps in the house of God and then for the Holy Spirit to quicken in you and older, wiser, more mature believers to point to you and say, „You’re the one. You don’t even realize you’re the one that you’ve been waiting for that we’ve been waiting for. You have the gifts, the talents, the equipping by God’s Spirit to fill in this gap.“
Discovering Purpose in Community
Some of the reason why I think oftentimes it takes us a while to realize what God’s plans and purposes and his will are for our life—some of that God doesn’t expose until we’re walking in obedience over years, and he continues to open that up—but some of the reason why we don’t come to know it is because we’re disconnected from the local church.
And it’s within the context of the local community of God’s people that we see needs and then come to divine, sacred revelation that God has equipped us to fill that. So he awakens passion; he awakens purpose; he awakens a sacred assignment within the context of local community.
Preparing for Mount Carmel Moments
Don’t skip that because if you get to Mount Carmel and you have not been first in Cherith and then in Zarephath, you will stand on Mount Carmel quaking in your boots, not able to have the resolution that will be required. Listen to me, for every single one of us who have placed faith in Jesus Christ, Mount Carmel is coming.
Mount Carmel is when you are standing by yourself. Oh, listen to me, young believers—you are going to be by yourself more and more in our post-Christian culture in which we live. You are going to be by yourself in order to be clear about your commitment to the word of God, the truth of God, in order to stand flat-footed and say things that are not politically correct, like there is only one way to have a relationship with God and that is through Jesus Christ—to be clear about your views on identity, to be clear about God’s definition about certain things that society right now is negotiating.
To be clear, you are going to have to stand all by yourself to do it. Mount Carmel is hard; it ain’t no joke. To have the resolution and the fortification we’re going to need for that, we’re going to have to have an internal fortitude that can only come through the stages that God takes us through so that when our moment comes, where yes, there are few eyes on us and we’re going to have to have the resolution not to cave underneath the pressure of peers to be able to do that, we’re going to have to have a real relationship with Jesus that’s not about the applause of people.
It’s not about whether they like us or not. It’s not about whether or not they approve or not; it’s that we know that he is who he said he is, he can do what he says he can do, and we have a friendship with him that is for real.