Limiting Our Blessings

Limiting Our Blessings

The Prophet’s Widow

Read: 2 Kings 4:1-7

As the opening credits appeared on the screen, my eyes strayed to my friend’s bowl of popcorn. I had never come to one of these free afternoon movies before. It wasn’t a first-run film, but I hadn’t seen it. To top it off, the theater offered free popcorn if we brought our own containers. My friend had showed up with a bowl at least twice the size of mine. I found it difficult to concentrate on the movie—I was thinking of all the bigger containers I had at home and wondering why I had limited myself.

The woman in 2 Kings must have been glad that she hadn’t limited her blessings to one small container. When her husband died, his creditor had threatened to seize her two sons as payment for debts. She told the prophet Elisha that all she had was a little oil, probably olive oil that she used for fuel, light, and cooking. Elisha instructed her to borrow a lot of empty jars from her neighbors and pour the oil into them until they were full. The woman obeyed, and as soon as she filled the last container, the oil stopped flowing. How overjoyed she must have been to see that she now had enough oil to sell and pay her debts as well as to support herself and her sons!

The widow demonstrated her faith by the number of jars she collected and by her willingness to follow the prophet’s instructions. Although God promises to meet all our needs, his provision works in the same measure as our trust and obedience. How often do we limit the blessings we receive by our lack of faith and our refusal to follow his instructions? God wants us to dream big and expect miraculous things from him. If we are open to all he has in store for us, there won’t be a container anywhere big enough to hold the blessings.

[He] is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

Ephesians 3:20 (NIV)