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bigmike

1 Kings 17:12 (LSB) 12 But she said, “As Yahweh your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
During a time of severe drought and famine, God directed Elijah to go to Zarephath, to the house of a widow. God told Elijah that the woman would sustain him.
Elijah did as God instructed. Upon arriving and finding the woman, Elijah asked her for a drink of water. As she turned and walked to get a water jar, Elijah called out and also asked her for a piece of bread.
At this, she said (in the verse above), that she was about to use the last of her flour and oil, that she and her son may eat their last meal and die.
When Elijah heard this, he proclaimed to her that she should go first and make a small piece of bread for him. And if she did so, she would also be able to return to her flour bowl and oil jar and there would be enough to make a meal for her and her son.
And he spoke a word to her from God assuring her that if she obeyed, God would sustain them for the duration of the drought, until rain came again.
1 Kings 17:14 (LSB) 14 For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the face of the earth.’”
At this, she obeyed Elijah.
This widow exhibited a kind of faith that is uncommon.
She was willing to surrender her very last meal to a prophet of God, trusting his promise that God would provide for them throughout the famine if she obeyed in faith.
We can all learn much from this about the ways that God moves; frequently contrary to anything we might have imagined.
It is very unlikely that this woman expected someone to come and ask for her last bits of flour and oil as a means of rescuing her and her son from the famine.
But that’s where we can learn so much from this event.
You see, as humans, our expectations of God are limited by what we can understand.
Even when we pray, we ask God to move on our behalf only in ways that we can comprehend intellectually.
It's highly unlikely that any of us would ever consider asking God to send someone to eat our last morsels of food so He could miraculously provide for us.
And who would ever ask God to send someone to ask them for their last five dollars so they could see Him move on their behalf and supply their financial needs?
It’s just not the way we think in our natural minds.
We limit God by asking only in ways that are a result of our human thinking.
This is why it is so critical for us to learn to live and walk by the Spirit of God, and His promptings, not by our flesh and our understanding.
Let us learn a valuable lesson from the widow at Zarephath.
And let us ask of God in ways that are led by the Holy Spirit, not by our intellect and earthly knowledge.
And be prepared to watch God move in ways too mighty to describe with mere human words.

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