2 Kings 4 provides a real and relevant challenge to us as believers that often feel like we don’t have enough – enough strength, enough time, enough resource, or even enough faith. The story of the widow’s oil is not only a miracle that the Lord performed through the prophet Elisha, it also raises a repeated theme in scripture of allowing God to work with us through times of need. Look at Elisha’s question to the widow.
The widow we encounter needed a miracle. Her family had been God-fearing people, but at this moment she was experiencing the hardest of times. It’s comforting to know that God hears our cries, but even more so that he wants to work with us when things get tough – that he cares and his desire is for us to keep trying.
When Elisha asks the widow what she has in her house, and begins to see God use what she has, it reminds me so much of the story of Gideon that we encountered in the book of Judges. He was scared and helpless just like this widow and the Lord showed up and tasked him with saving the people. When he protested and tried to explain as so many in scripture do, “God, you’ve got the wrong guy,” the angel of the Lord tells him to “Go in the strength that you have.” Just like the widow, we often look at what we lack and how much we don’t have, but God is a God who sees things a little differently. After all, he is God “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.” (Romans 4:17 NASB)
Whether it was Gideon, Moses, David or Peter, so many times we see God come through when people simply trust God with what they do have. As the story of the widow closes, we see that as soon as she runs out of jars to fill, the oil stops flowing. My prayer is that we never run out of jars to fill. I know God longs to keep taking us to new heights, keep stretching our faith, keep meeting our needs, but let’s always be a people that trusts him with what we have, even if it feels like it will never be enough.