“Hide yourself by the brook Cherith” (1 Kings 17:3).
God’s servants must learn the value of the hidden life. The person who is to take a high place before his fellow beings, must sometimes take a low place before their God.
Every saintly soul that would wield great power with other people must win it in some hidden Cherith. The acquisition of spiritual power is impossible, unless we can hide ourselves from others, even from ourselves in some deep place where we may absorb the power of the eternal God. Perhaps like a solar panel, absorbing the light and using it to provide power to others.
A fellow by the name of David Brainerd (April 20, 1718 – October 9, 1747) was an American Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Native Americans among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. Missionaries such as William Carey and Jim Elliot, and Brainerd’s cousin, the Second Great Awakening evangelist James Brainerd Taylor (1801–1829) cite Brainerd as their source of inspiration. David Brainerd had many hours each day of “secret prayer,” in the woods of North America. He did not think he could face his calling by God without being “hidden” like that.
“Turn thee eastward,” the prophet was bidden, “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.” {PK 121.2} Just as in the days of Elijah, when we are “hidden with Christ,” God will still provide for our every need. Patmos, the seclusion of the Roman prisons, the Arabian desert, the hills and vales of Palestine, are forever memorable as the Cheriths of those who have gone before us.
Our Lord found His Cherith at Nazareth, and in the wilderness of Judea; amid the olives of Bethany, and the solitude of Gadara. None of us, therefore, can dispense with some Cherith where the sounds of human voices are exchanged for the waters of quietness which are fed from the throne; and where we may taste the sweets and imbibe the power of a life hidden with Christ.(Elijah, by Meyer).
Keep your mind on things above, not on worldly things. Col 3:3 You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:3-4, GW)
“Take up the shield of faith, in your “Cherith” by which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. (Eph 6:16)
When self is hid in Jesus, we are shielded from the darts of the enemy. {7BC 908.1}