Is There a Lesson Here?
When God sent his prophet Elijah away to hide from king Ahab, he eventually sent him to a widow in the little town of Zarephath likely just out of reach of Ahab’s authority (1st Kings 17:1-16).
God had withheld rain from Israel long enough for food to be scarce. When Elijah approached the Lady, she was gathering a few sticks to kindle a fire so she could cook the last bit of food she had left for herself and her son. She fully expected to die after it was gone.
Elijah’s instructions may seem brazen to us when he told her not to be afraid, but to first make a cake of bread for him so that he might eat. Afterwards, he said that she could make bread for herself and her son.
He told her that God promised not to let her bowl of meal become
exhausted or her jar of oil to fail, until rain would bring relief and food to the land.
She obeyed. God was faithful. No one died. She and her family ate well from the unfailing resource of God’s generosity.
Eventually, our circumstances at some point in the future will likely tempt us to worry, to hold back, to shortchange God in some way. When that happens, let’s remember this simple account of a woman who had reconciled herself and her family to die a long slow death by starvation, but found instead “out of the blue” a means of
salvation that she never could have imagined.
Why else would God have this account written down and preserved for us to read today?