Comfort foods for the soul (5): Even ravens can be useful

Just imagine for the entire life of a person, for reasons beyond his control, he’s been shunned and detested.
Useless.

Must be devastating.

Perhaps someone with leprosy.
Labeled as unclean.
Untouchable.

But it’s a contagious disease.
It could be argued.

But what about ravens?

What about them?

Jewish religious laws on purity are paramount.

Ravens are unclean and detestable.
It’s regulated as per the Israelite’s Laws in Leviticus 11:13 and Deuteronomy 14:14.

Anything that’s touched by something or someone that’s unclean would automatically become unclean.
So imagine how unwelcome ravens have become.

Add to that their looks and crows.

Add to that their diets.
They eat discriminately, mostly dead carcasses.

So the case of ravens is clearly closed.
Who would touch them?
No one would use them!

But perhaps God!

In the Hebrew Bible 1 Kings 17:1-7, it’s recorded that the prophet Elijah was brought to a brook and fed by foods brought by none other than ravens.
Meals in the morning and evening.

Delftware plaque with the Prophet Elijah fed by the Ravens, 1916: given to Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (After Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The prophet not defiled by unclean ravens?

Seems not.
For afterwards, Elijah won a duel with a horde of Baal prophets.
Convincingly.

There’s hope for someone like ravens.
Or someone who sees himself as labelled as ravens.
What seems to be a dead-end, through the lens of human constructed prisms, is opened up to bountiful ministry.
Even triumph over pagan prophets!

The boundaries painted by humans, though as seemingly as rightly derived from sacred Scriptures, are but dew to the true God at dawn.

Never let dew soak.
Never let dew damp dreams.
Never let dew fizzle sparks of hope.

God’s freedom is never bounded.
God can bless and use anyone.
As He sees fit.

It’s unwise to think future is constrained because of self-imposed taboos, even religious ones.

It’s comforting on the other hand, to let go and to surrender to God’s use.
However impossible one thinks.
However low one’s self image is.

God’s perspective frees and comforts.

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1 Kings 17:2-7 (New International Version):
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.