“Now it happened after many days that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, ‘Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth.’ So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. Ahab called Obadiah who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly; for when Jezebel destroyed the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and provided them with bread and water.)” (1 Kings 18:1-4).

This is the third story about God’s provision of bread and water for his prophets during the three year famine (1 Kings 17:4, 9; 18:4, 13). Yet again, we see God’s provision coming from an unlikely source. In the previous stories, God provided through crows and through a foreign widow from Sidon. This time God provides for one hundred prophets through an official serving in the same house as the person who was murdering God’s prophets.

Obadiah is one of the Hebrew Bible’s unsung heroes, for he risked his life to feed one hundred hungry mouths and quench one hundred thirsty throats during a very severe famine, and this, right under the nose of the blood-thirsty queen who sought to kill them. How was Obadiah not completely paralyzed by fear of what would happen to him if he were caught? Obadiah had one fear that put all other fears in their proper place. “Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly” (1 King 18:3).

In times when doing the right thing is not only unpopular but down-right deadly, only a healthy, hearty, and holy fear of God prevents us from the fear of not conforming our lives to the rest of the world.

“In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence, and his children will have refuge” (Prov 14:26). “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28).