This week's text: 1 Kings 17: 2 - 24
Today, read 1 Kings 17: 7 - 16
We left Elijah by a wadi, getting water from it and being brought food by ravens. God is taking care of His servant. However, there is a drought in the land and the wadi dries up. God certainly could have brought water from the ground for Elijah but it seems God has something else for Elijah to do and, perhaps, to learn.
Elijah is told by God to go to the town of Zarephath, outside of Israel, in Sidon, and we watch this man of God pick up and go. I love Elijah for the picture of faithfulness that he gives us. He goes.
I would love to hear your thoughts about the widow that Elijah encounters. What can we know about her? Widowed, but we don't know how long. A mother - one son. She is not totally without because she has a house. It even has an extra room in which Elijah goes to reside. But the drought has devastated the land and the food is gone. She has reached a place of "hope lost" and has resigned herself to her own death from starvation and the death of her son. Imagine the anguish of spirit in her! Imagine her mother's heart breaking! Let her be "real" in your mind. Place yourself in her shoes. Have you ever had to walk in a place where you felt that your resources were gone? Perhaps not food ... but something else where you believed that all was "over"? On that level I can somewhat relate to her.
And here some man is asking for her help? Not much - just water and bread. But that is life - water and bread. She obviously has heard of Elijah's God by the way she addressed him. And she obviously recognized that Elijah was an Israelite and not a Sidonian. Elijah offers her a promise from Jehovah. Now put yourself in her position. What would you do? Believe him or not? This woman is asked to make an astronomical leap of faith!
Was her response out of desperation? We don't know.
Was her response from a place of "what difference does it make"? We don't know.
Was her response based on a little faith accompanied by doubt? We don't know.
Was her response totally faith driven? We don't know.
What we do know ... is that she responded to the promise of God. And it proved true.
Lessons for you and I?
Learning to trust God is not an easy task. It requires our struggle with what seems to be reality. When God's word seems to contradict what we see, which do you believe? It requires surrender and acknowledged dependence. Are you still functioning under the illusion that you are "in control"? Of anything!? It requires obedience. When you come to realize that you are not walking with God in any area of your life, what do you do?
I have lessons to learn from this widow from Zarephath. Do you?
No comments:
Post a Comment