Do you ever find yourself being drawn back to a Bible passage? I was reading 2 Kings earlier in the month, but I find myself going back to the life of Elisha. There seems to be so much in his story that is speaking into my life and our situation at the moment.
I am constantly going back to it, listening to sermons and trying to find a good book to read on the subject (any recommendations gratefully received). As I re-read chapter 4:1-7, the story of the indebted widow who is saved from losing her sons through the miracle of the provision of olive oil came alive with challenges.
My initial thoughts were, who is this widow and why hasn’t her husband provided for her? On doing a bit of digging, it appears that there is general consensus that she is the widow of Obadiah. Who you’ll all remember served in the courts of King Ahab, and who hid 100 prophets of the Lord from Jezebel when she was trying to kill all the prophets. This would have involved supplying them with food and drink, so I guess that answers the question about where did all his money go. It’s interesting to note that the widow waited until she was severely in debt before she asked for help. How often do you or I try to work things out ourselves, rather than turning to God?
When she first approaches Elisha, she is totally desperate and throws herself at his mercy. Elisha starts by asking exactly how he can help and then he asks her what she has at home. Her initial reaction is that she has nothing, before then going on to say that she only has a small jar of olive oil. How often when we’re down and hurting, do we only see what we don’t have and we don’t see all the blessings that we do have?
Olive oil was a commodity in demand at the time, it had the obvious uses in cooking, but it was also used for lamps, in medicine, as a beauty/skincare product to name but a few. Therefore the little that she had, had some worth. Upon Elisha’s instructions, she collected things of little or no value from her neighbours and these were transformed into highly desirable commodities with the addition of the oil.
I felt challenged, that we should all stop waiting for what we want and start working with what we have. We just need to be prepared to offer God all that we have and trust him to supply what we need! We have been trying to do this since we were given the vision for Time2, but a gentle reminder along the way is definitely needed.
Click here to read our 2019 blog The Impossible Made Possible based on this same story
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