Give God Your Emptiness

After a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.

Then the LORD said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.”

1 Kings 17:7-9

Through his actions in the life of Elijah, God demonstrates what we can expect from him. He promises that he will always meet our needs wherever he calls us to go.

In the midst of a severe drought, God had sent Elijah to stay beside a brook in the wilderness. Elijah would drink from the brook, and ravens would feed him. God miraculously sustained Elijah in the first three years of the drought, sending provision by the most unexpected means.

But eventually the brook dried up, and God sent Elijah to Zarephath, where he had directed a widow to provide for Elijah. God had many ways in which he could have fed and nourished Elijah. The ravens could still have fed him. Or this same God who had made water gush from a rock and caused manna to appear every morning for the Israelites in the wilderness could have done that again. But he wanted the widow to provide for Elijah.

As the story unfolds, Elijah has an encounter with the very widow God had appointed to supply Elijah with food. When Elijah asks for bread, she reveals that she doesn’t have any bread. She is at the end of her provision. There is no more, and she sees no possible way to get more.

This widow, fresh out of bread, is the one God has commanded to feed Elijah. So Elijah tells her to ignore her lack of provision and act as if she has plenty. As soon as she obeys, the provision is there. And every time she needs more flour and oil, flour and oil are there.

God appointed this destitute widow to give out of the little she had so that she could obtain the blessing that giving brings and could receive in the measure she gave. When she did, she set in motion the Kingdom law that releases the Lord’s abundant and perfect provision in response to his people’s obedience.

Father, teach me to live in the abundance of your promises instead of in my evaluation of my circumstances.

There can be no faith so feeble that Christ does not respond to it.

Alexander Maclaren(1826–1910), British preacher and Bible expositor