1 Kings 17:8-14 (NIVUK)
8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 ‘Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have instructed a widow there to supply you with food.’ 10 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?’ 11 As she was going to get it, he called, ‘And bring me, please, a piece of bread.’
12 ‘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.’
13 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. 14 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.”’
God has caused a drought to strike the land, blocking up the rain for the next few years, meaning Elijah has to trust in God for his ‘daily bread’. He turns to this widow, asking her for food, asking her to risk giving him her and her sons last meal. Elijah reassures her that God says her flour and oil jars will not run out if she does so until the rain comes, but it is still a big ask. Nevertheless, she gives it to him, and God is true to his word, there is enough for all of them, just as God had promised through Elijah!
Sometimes, Father, faith asks a lot of us. We find it hard to risk what we have on a promise we read in the Bible. Help us to have the faith to be courageously generous like this widow.
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