Happy Tuesday!

1 Kings 17:16 “The flour jar did not empty, and the oil jar did not run dry.”

I love this story. God sends one of His greatest prophets, Elijah, to stay with a poor widow. This widow had no money and was rapidly running out of food and she was responsible for herself and her son. And then God sends them a guest who tells her to make a small cake of flour and oil for him and then go and feed herself and her son. What an amazing act of faith this woman shows us. She goes and does what this total stranger tells her to do. The widow knows that the drought has dried up all of the crops, the cattle are dying and she only has a tiny bit of food in the house. Her faith and the intervention of the Holy Spirit, caused her to go and take the last bit of food and give it to a stranger.

Then God rewarded her faithfulness by never allowing her jar of flour to go empty or her flask of oil to run dry. This passage makes this promise twice within the span of just a few verses and then adds “the flour will not be used up or the jar of oil run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.” And vs. 15 “The reward was enough food for each day for she, her son and Elijah. The times were hard, but because of her faith the Lord provided for their needs.” It does not say that God provided lavish meals of turkey and dressing, candied yams and pie for dessert. No, the passage simply says there was enough food to meet their daily needs. There were no leftovers; just enough to meet the daily needs of this rather odd three member community of faith.

What can we learn from this widow and her faith? Well, first, we can learn that if we surrender our needs over to the Father then He will supply our needs in some way. The devotion I was reading today says that God is not surprised when things happen to us. Some of us have lost jobs. We are really concerned about how we are going to pay the mortgage, make the car payment, keep the utilities going and put gas in the car. Are we feeling desperate?

I feel pretty sure if we read the whole passage in 2 Kings that this woman was feeling pretty desperate. She had a child to feed with no money and almost no food. For a parent, the thought of not being able to feed your family is an awful feeling. If that were me I would go without food if it meant being able to feed my child. I would imagine that the widow was doing without in order that her child might have bread and God told Elijah that He had commanded her to feed him.
This desperate woman needed to learn dependence on the Lord. And Elijah needed to see the power of a faithful woman. So she placed her trust in God and hospitably answered the request of the man of God that was sent to her. She met Elijah’s needs before she met her own. Later when the widow’s son died Elijah prayed to God to restore the life of her son. Elijah saw the faith of the woman and how much she loved her son. Her son’s life was restored. God rewarded Elijah’s growing faith and the woman’s faithfulness to Him.

Times right now are pretty hard for so many people. Can we follow the gift of hospitality like the widow? When times are hard we must learn dependence on Christ. God is not surprised when we lose jobs or money becomes scarce. He knows what our needs are. We are just used to leading lives of abundance. We have always told our children that we will try our very best to provide what they need and some of what they want.

God is our Father. He will meet our needs. He may not meet our needs in the ways in which we expect, but God knows us best and loves us so much. So however He meets our needs we need to accept them with grateful hearts and humble gratitude. Remember His Son did not live a life of extravagance. Jesus chose not the world, but His Father’s plan. God never left His Son and He will not leave us.

Take joy in the journey and stay in the shade. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.