Impossible provisions
This week's study is on 1 Kings 17:8-16:
The story in these verses seems pretty absurd when you think about it. God speaks to his prophet Elijah during a massive drought and tells him to go over to the house of someone with probably the least to spare in all of Israel and ask for free food and water. And it works!
In old times, before there was such a thing as famine airlifts and industrialized farming, a long drought was a very big deal. People needed water to grow crops, and they needed successful crops in order to grow food. If they ran out of food, nobody was going to help them. There was no UN task force for hunger, or collection of non-profits dedicated to feeding countries who were down on their luck. If the amount of food and water was less than the number of people it fed, the extra ones starved. Think of it as a game of musical chairs played to the death.
When food is running out, people get protective of it. They're not just going to hand it out to someone, especially if they have young mouths to feed! They're frantic, and paranoid, and very uncharitable.
Imagine being a widow, with no source of income or support. You have a boy to raise, who nobody is going to stand up for but you, because he's not their boy. You have only a day's worth of food left. You've tried everything to get more, but without luck. So you've resigned yourself to starving to death after this one last decent meal. But then some scruffy beggar comes up and asks for a handout? No way!
But God said that the widow would provide Elijah's meals. So Elijah shares God's promise with the widow. There will be enough for what God has promised, if she will believe. Lacking other attractive options, she decides to try it, and God is proven correct. Elijah, the widow, and her son survive the famine and are provided for.
But think of the ridiculousness of that arrangement! Not only is the widow probably the least likely to have food, but she's also the rudest person to demand it from. Would you be comfortable asking someone to take food away from their own child to feed you? Would you take food out of your child's mouth to feed some pushy stranger?
And yet that's exactly what had to happen for God's plan to unfold. Elijah had to beg from someone who would surely say no, and the widow had to offer her last hope of a decent meal to a complete stranger, in order for them both to be fed. Elijah needed to show faith that God was right when he said she would help, and the widow needed to show faith that God was right about the limitless provision.
The Bible is full of cases where God tests people's resolve by putting them in seemingly impossible situations and then miraculously taking them through them. If we run into an impossible situation, especially in an area where God has promised his support, we should remember the story of Elijah and the widow and be confident that things will turn out in our favor.
Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
The story in these verses seems pretty absurd when you think about it. God speaks to his prophet Elijah during a massive drought and tells him to go over to the house of someone with probably the least to spare in all of Israel and ask for free food and water. And it works!
In old times, before there was such a thing as famine airlifts and industrialized farming, a long drought was a very big deal. People needed water to grow crops, and they needed successful crops in order to grow food. If they ran out of food, nobody was going to help them. There was no UN task force for hunger, or collection of non-profits dedicated to feeding countries who were down on their luck. If the amount of food and water was less than the number of people it fed, the extra ones starved. Think of it as a game of musical chairs played to the death.
When food is running out, people get protective of it. They're not just going to hand it out to someone, especially if they have young mouths to feed! They're frantic, and paranoid, and very uncharitable.
Imagine being a widow, with no source of income or support. You have a boy to raise, who nobody is going to stand up for but you, because he's not their boy. You have only a day's worth of food left. You've tried everything to get more, but without luck. So you've resigned yourself to starving to death after this one last decent meal. But then some scruffy beggar comes up and asks for a handout? No way!
But God said that the widow would provide Elijah's meals. So Elijah shares God's promise with the widow. There will be enough for what God has promised, if she will believe. Lacking other attractive options, she decides to try it, and God is proven correct. Elijah, the widow, and her son survive the famine and are provided for.
But think of the ridiculousness of that arrangement! Not only is the widow probably the least likely to have food, but she's also the rudest person to demand it from. Would you be comfortable asking someone to take food away from their own child to feed you? Would you take food out of your child's mouth to feed some pushy stranger?
And yet that's exactly what had to happen for God's plan to unfold. Elijah had to beg from someone who would surely say no, and the widow had to offer her last hope of a decent meal to a complete stranger, in order for them both to be fed. Elijah needed to show faith that God was right when he said she would help, and the widow needed to show faith that God was right about the limitless provision.
The Bible is full of cases where God tests people's resolve by putting them in seemingly impossible situations and then miraculously taking them through them. If we run into an impossible situation, especially in an area where God has promised his support, we should remember the story of Elijah and the widow and be confident that things will turn out in our favor.
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