In 1 Kings 17 there is the story of the prophet Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. A great famine had come upon the land of Israel, due to Elijah’s prayers. God was demonstrating through Elijah that God was Lord; not Baal whose followers believed controlled the weather. During this period, God told Elijah to go to Zarephath, because there God had commanded a widow to provide food and shelter for him during the time of the famine.
You would expect two things from such instructions. First, that the widow would be someone who had the resources to look after Elijah during the famine – thus she would be someone rich and influential. However, when Elijah arrives he finds a woman who, although she may have been well off in the past, had no resources with which to look after him. She only had enough flour left to make one more meal for her son and herself before they would die of starvation. Not only did she not have the resources herself, she had no way of finding such resources elsewhere. Whatever influence she may have had in the past was far gone from her current situation.
Second, you would have thought that God would have told the woman herself that he was sending a prophet to her to provide him with shelter and food. However, there is no indication in the story that the woman was aware of such a command before Elijah requested from her food and water. When Elijah requested food from her, she explained her plight and heavily noted that she did not have enough flour for her son and herself to provide food beyond their next and final meal. Elijah tells her to make food for him anyway and then for her son and herself. He finishes this instruction with a promise from God that the jar of flour and oil would not run out until the famine was over. That is exactly what happened. The jar of flour and oil did not run out until the famine was finished.
A number of thoughts come from this story. The first is that God’s call or command to us might not necessarily come before the occasion for its enactment. That is, Elijah’s request and promise instigated God’s command in this widow’s life. Despite her difficulties, this woman was sensitive enough to hear God’s command and promise, as the prophet spoke those words, and to know that in this simple instruction there was now a glimmer of hope for the future. The second is that once the command came, with its slight glimmer of hope, she responded in faith and acted upon God’s word. I am sure that she had often prayed that God would send her help. I am also sure she expected that someone would arrive with food to help her out. Instead, someone arrived asking her for food. However, in the prophet’s request and promise she sensed the hand of God at work in her life to save her from her difficulties. The third is she had to act in faith and provide the prophet with food before the promise would come. If she had turned Elijah away that day then she would probably have died, along with her son. Often God’s answer to our need comes in the form of a request for us to act for God or others, despite our difficulties. When we do that, His miracle-working power comes into play.
