Stopping abruptly in her tracks, she slowly turned and stared at that man straight in his eyeballs. He must not be from around here. Or he was joking. Badly. The request was beyond the pale. Not the first request, the one for a drink of water. That was doable. It was the second request that brought her up short. The one made to her retreating back as she left to fetch his water. The one he hadn’t had the decency to look her in the eyes and make. The one he’d tried to present as an offhand addition. The one that would require the last morsels of food in her house and bring death to herself and her son even more quickly than it was already coming. The man wanted bread. Her bread. All the bread she had.
For months, no rain or dew had fallen. Not one drop. It felt like so much longer. Cracking and crumbling from the punishing heat of the sun, their fields had long since dried up. The plants were shriveled, brown sticks standing in the fields where they died. Nothing flourished. Nothing grew. Nothing could. Food was beyond scarce. For everyone. The days of their lives were measured in edible resources. Jars of flour. Jugs of oil. Rations determined how long one would live before the drought took its inevitable toll. Worry and fear were twin companions constantly plaguing their minds and torturing their hearts. The widow of Zarephath was no exception. With the care of her young son resting on her shoulders, she was even more aware of their dire situation. And she had nothing extra. Not even a crust of bread.
Drawing a fortifying breath, she retraced her steps, squared her shoulders, stared straight in the man’s face, and outlined her sustenance situation. They had nothing extra, because there was nothing left. Their larders were empty. Their cupboards were bare. Their fields were dry and dead. Food of any kind was at a premium. And hospitality had its limits. The last drops of oil and the final cup of flour would be used that day. For herself and her son. The tiny loaf of bread it produced would be split between them. Not evenly. His portion would be larger. They would savor that final meal together, and accept their fate. Death. From starvation. It was not an embellishment or an exaggeration. It was simply the facts. By nightfall, they would have nothing left. Sooner, if he ate their bread.
Knowing his request was unwelcome under the circumstances, Elijah still persisted. Not because he was starving. He wasn’t. At all. He had just travelled from Kerith Brook where God had blessed him with all the amenities. Flowing water to drink. Doordash ravens. His needs were well and truly met. He could have gone several more days before his body demanded this widow’s final meager loaf of oily flour. But Elijah was on a mission. From God. For God. An errand of salvation. One to rescue bodies and redeem souls.
Calmly looking back at the woman, Elijah watched the emotions flash across her face. Anger. Fear. Despair. Defeat. She was angry that he asked. Angry that he seemed to place such low value on their lives. Enraged that he would make such a selfish request. Terrified they really were going to die, no food would come, no help would arrive. Horrified that she might have to watch her son starve to death before succumbing herself. Or worse, she would die before her child, leaving him alone to fend for himself. The knowledge that she had no power over the elements, could not speak food into existence, and couldn’t control life and death had despair and defeat slumping her shoulders. She had done everything she could to survive. Rationed supplies. Cut portions. Searched the entire countryside. Nothing had helped. Now the only things standing between them and death were a handful of flour and a drizzle of oil. It was all she had. And he had just asked her to give it away.
Responding to the depth of her barely controlled emotions, Elijah explained himself. She didn’t need to be afraid. Not anymore. She could lay that down. Right now. Go inside and bake him a little loaf of bread. Then make one for herself and her son. Make them each one. Make a large loaf. Make two small loaves for each person. Bake as much bread as she wanted. There would be enough supplies. There would always be enough. If she would step out in faith and make him a loaf of bread, God would reward her with a constant supply of oil and flour until the drought ended, the rains came, and the crops once again produced food.
Carefully weighing the options, the widow of Zarephath had to be honest with herself. Hoarding that one little loaf to themselves wasn’t going to prolong their lives. Not really. Those few bites of food would only delay the inevitable. They would die. Both of them. Her. Her son. Even if she gave him her entire portion of bread, death was still lurking, waiting for him like a vulture. It broke her heart. The whole thing had. The drought. The food shortage. The toll it was taking on their friends and neighbors. Living in the reality of imminent death had sucked the life from her soul. Yet here stood this prophet, offering her an opportunity to survive, to thrive when everything else was dying. She couldn’t prove his words were true, didn’t know what she would do if they weren’t, but she had nothing left to lose. She had nothing left in general. Nothing but hope and faith in the promise of God spoken to her through the prophet.
Silently nodding her head in acquiescence, the widow headed to do as Elijah had said. Bring him water. Make him bread. One loaf. It would take the remainder of her ingredients. Firmly silencing the dissenting voice in her head, she started working. Building a fire. Making a dough. Baking the loaf. She didn’t peek back into the jar after she emptied the last of the flour into her bowl. She didn’t keep checking the jug for additional oil after draining its dregs. She just kept working. Kept hoping. Kept believing. Kept placing her faith in the God of Elijah. It was all she could do. All she had left. There was nothing else in her pantry, nothing else in her soul to give. Nothing but faith.
As she headed off to make that last meal, as the smell of freshly baked bread filled her nostrils and made her mouth water, one wonders what thoughts crossed her mind. What did she really think as she carried the bread and water, her own final meal, out to Elijah? Was there a moment when the doubt and fear nearly had her snatching it back, calling her son, and hurrying to eat it before Elijah could? As she turned to head back into the house to make more bread for herself and her son, did her stomach clench, her throat tighten with the worry that she had been duped? Did she make that walk with bated breath, uneasy until she lifted the lid of the flour jar and shook the jug of oil? Did she ever once doubt her decision to trust the words of God from the prophet? Was she tempted to change her mind, go back on her word? Or had she weighed it all in the balance, the certainty of death against the possibility of life, and determined that the risk of faith was worth it?
The widow couldn’t have been more correct. Upon returning to her kitchen, she found her flour jar still contained flour and her oil jug was full. They weren’t going to starve. At all. Not physically. Not spiritually. When there was nothing left, no food to be found, no help to be offered, no hope to be had, when meager faith in the promise of God was all she could muster, it was all she needed. Faith. In God. To do the impossible. To perform the improbable. To manage the inconceivable. When she had nothing left but faith, she found it was all she needed. (I Kings 17:1-16)
As easy as it is to get caught up in the miracle of this account, I wonder if we can just set that aside for a moment and focus on the woman. So often we can identify with her. Not necessarily because our cupboards are bare, a drought has struck the land, or we are on the brink of watching our children starve. Most of us have never been there. But we have been in the same emotional space. Discouraged. Desperate. Destitute. Distressed. Her life was on the brink of ending. She was staring at the horrific, gut-wrenching possibility of watching her son die of starvation. Listening to his cries of hunger. Watching his little body waste away. The pictures of what she knew was coming flashed before her eyes like a daytime nightmare. She was wrecked by the knowledge she couldn’t fix it, couldn’t stop it, could do nothing about it. Everything within her power to do had already been done. She was out of options. Her heart was shattered. Her mind searched endlessly for a reason for their circumstances. She had done nothing to incur the wrath of Israel’s God. She lived a quiet life scraping out a living for herself and her son. Try as she might, she couldn’t manage to come up with a reason, an explanation for the relentless drought, their empty food bins, their rumbling stomachs, or their imminent death. For the widow of Zarephath, everything was already gone. The food was nearly exhausted. Their lives were nearly extinguished. All hope had died weeks ago when she opened her final jar of flour. Her soul felt empty. Her heart felt dead. She was physically and emotionally drained. She had nothing left and nowhere to turn. Until Elijah showed up.
Even still, with the odds stacked so completely against her and the options so severely limited, we have to acknowledge the monumental effort it took to force herself to step out in faith and give Elijah that final little ball of bread–the last chance of survival for herself and her son. Giving it to Elijah meant risking any possibility her son could survive the drought, grow up to be a man, live his life. She knew that. She had weighed it all in the balance. She also knew she was at the end of her resources. She had nothing left. No options. No prospects. No hope of help. So she grabbed the little bit of faith she had left, took a chance on God’s promise, and handed everything she had to Elijah.
Sit in that for a minute. Stay in that space, mentally picture that widow releasing everything she had to God and trusting Him to faithfully figure out the future. Let that lesson seep into your soul and penetrate your heart. You need to do the same. We all do. We need to live like that. Have faith like that. Realize that we are always at the end of ourselves, the end of our resources, the end of our abilities. Understand that our strength, our courage, our help, our hope comes only from God. Admit that we are broken and empty, having nothing, owning nothing, in charge of nothing. Nothing but our faith. And it is ours alone to give. (Psalm 121; I Chronicles 29:11-12; Romans 12:1; I Peter 5:7; Matthew 6:28-31)
We are not good at it. Giving everything to God in faith. Pulling back empty hands. Trusting Him with our present and future. Allowing Him to work things out for His glory and our good. Knowing in our heads and believing in our hearts that He is our only safety, our only security, our only shelter in the storms of life. We waste so much time trying to find our own answers, make our own paths, forge our own destinies. We need to stop. Just stop. Quit acting like we can handle everything on our own, know all the right answers, or can find a way to fix all our own problems. We can’t. We don’t have that power. Only God does. He is sovereign. He knows all things. He sees our beginning, our end, and everything in between. He has a plan for us when everything else is changing and fading and passing away, when everything spins out of our control, when we feel drained and discouraged and nearly dead. God has a plan. For me. For you. A good plan. A perfect plan. A plan based on faith alone. But you’ll have to trust Him. With everything. As the world and society rages out of control, as things rattle and shake around you, as the feelings of uncertainty and unsettledness beat on your heart and batter your mind, you need to find the courage to put your faith, your future, in God’s hands. All of it. The part you can see and the part you can’t. Empty your hands until you have nothing left but faith. (Isaiah 46:9-10; Daniel 4:35; Psalm 18:30; Jeremiah 29:11; I John 2:17: Proverbs 3:5-6; Matthew 6:33)
Too often for our comfort, we find we can’t alter our circumstances or change our situations. We can’t change the things that happen to us. We can’t stop the diagnosis, the termination, the paycheck that doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. We can do nothing about the bent toward sin that has taken over our nation. We can’t stop the fires, stem the floods, end the wars that grip our world. We can’t always halt the fear that hounds us or the worry that batters our peace. But. We don’t have to be overcome, overwhelmed, exhausted by these things either. When everything else is gone, when hope seems lost, when we can’t understand why things are happening to us or going on around us, when we feel we have nothing left to offer, we can still choose to place our faith in God and trust Him with our lives. Every. Single. Day. When our cup is full. When it is empty. Even when we have nothing left but faith. (Hebrews 11:1; II Corinthians 4:18; Mark 11:22-24; Psalm 42:11; Philippians 4:6-7)