God’s Miraculous Provision
A Dramatic turn of events!
"Now it came about after these things"
After what things? Let's not miss
this! The death of the widow's son
occurred after the blessings and
miraculous daily provisions mentioned in the above verses.
In other
words, after everything seemed to be okay, God placed a bend, a sharp turn in
the road.
Observations:
First:
Quite unexpectedly, in the midst of a period of God's supply and relative
ease and quiet, disaster strikes. The
widow's son is taken sick and actually dies--with the prophet of the living God
living right there in her home!
Second:
As we experience God's blessing and provision, especially after some
kind of test or trial, there is always a subtle temptation for us to think we
have passed the test and everything is going to be easier from now on.
But such an attitude ignores some basic truth:
1. This world is not
2. We tend to forget the necessity of
suffering along with the many reasons for suffering that we find set forth in
the Scripture.
Note the
warnings of Deuteronomy 6:10-13 and the repeated warnings against forgetting or
the call to remember
(Against
forgetting: Deut. 4:9, 23, 31;
To
remember:
3. We often treat the tests of life
as something foreign and strange.
Either we let them fade from our thinking or we
ignore both the Lord's warning and Peter's that we should never be surprised by
trials nor think them strange (John 15:18; 16:33; 1 Pet. 4:12).
Peter
reminds us that trials are sometimes "necessary." 1 Peter 1:6-7,
It is
interesting to note the definite change in attitude between 1 Kings
It suggests
three problems with her thinking and
her faith or her relationship with God that needed to be transformed.
It appears she thought that with the prophet in her home she was
immune to problems.
What is
the primary goal that God wants for us? What's the good that He desires for
each of us? I believe it is being
conformed to the image of Christ.
But due
to our proneness to wander, our tendency to live independently of Him and our
attempt to manage our own lives, God must sometimes bring into our lives
suffering or pain.
Principles:
1. Even though the Lord has richly
blessed us in Christ, and though He may meet our needs in marvelous ways, it
never means we are immune to trials down the road or around the next corner. He certainly, therefore, knows what we all
need, what is in our best interest.
2. However, the fact and presence of
trials or irritations never means God has removed His grace and love. If anything, as the biblical analogy of God
as our heavenly Father and Vine Dresser illustrates, it is the evidence of His
love and faithful care.
3. As the One who knows our thinking
better than we ourselves, God must often bring into our lives suffering, or
allow it after times of great blessing, because it is necessary for one or more
obvious reasons:
(a) We may begin to
take Him for granted, to presume on Him.
We even begin to treat the Lord as though He owed us something.
(b) Or we may begin to live for His
blessings (like the flour and the oil of this story) rather than for Him. We become occupied and caught up with the blessings rather than the Blesser.
There
are no promises of material blessing to the believer in the C/A.
(c) In the process
of all this, we may begin to live independently, seeking our happiness,
security, and joy from other sources.
Her
reaction and words to Elijah suggest another aspect of her thinking which is so
common. She felt guilt and thought
perhaps she was to blame for the child's death.
People
tend to see suffering either as a product of random, meaningless pain, or as
caused by some sin. This results in
living in a world of guilt and fear.
Because
her eyes were not on the Lord, because her expectations were wrong, and because
she felt guilty thinking maybe she was to blame in some way, her guilt and pain
took the form of despair, anger or resentment, and then blame.
How typical and how ironic. When things take a
turn we aren't expecting, rather than looking up to the Lord to draw upon His
resources and learn what He is seeking to teach us, we so often take out our
anger on the very person or persons whom God has used to bless and minister to
our lives.
Illustrations:
1. In the pictures of the ancient
Roman method of threshing grain, one man is always seen stirring up the sheaves
while another rides over them in a crude cart equipped with rollers instead of
wheels.
Sharp
stones and rough bits of iron were attached to these cylinders to help separate
the husks from the grain. This simple
cart was called a tribulum--from which we get our word "tribulation."
2. The Scriptures exhort us to walk
by the Spirit and through the Spirit's empowering, our lives should overflow with the fruit of the Spirit--various
godly virtues.
Why didn't Elijah call on the Lord to heal the child
before he died? Had Elijah been away a
day or so only to arrive to find the child dead? We just don’t know. Not told!
Though her tone was somewhat caustic, it is important to
see that Elijah did not react to what she said.
Rather he responded with positive compassion and action.
Let's note what he
did:
1. He did not take this
personally. He had compassion for her
hurt. He knew her need was to know the
Lord and believe His Word. He put her
spiritual and emotional needs above his own desires (Phil. 2:3-4).
2. He was secure in the Lord. He sought his sense of significance, his
security, and his joy in the Lord, and not in the responses of people. He wasn't seeking to defend his turf as a
prophet (1 Cor. 4:1-5).
3. Because he was secure through his
relationship with the Lord, he didn't give excuses or turn to defense tactics
with the woman. Instead, he reached out to
her need and then took the matter directly to the Lord. He knew he was there to minister and that the
Lord was in charge, in control, and working out His purposes.
To show
that this was so with Elijah, note verse 20a. "O LORD, my God." He rested his needs in God and concentrated
on this woman's plight rather than her retort.
(a) With the words "O
LORD" he was fervently reaching out to God, but as Yahweh, the
covenant God of Israel, the independent and sovereign God and the God of
revelation and redemption. By this
title, he showed he had a true knowledge of God and stood in a covenant
relationship with Him.
(b) With the words "my
God" he was acting from his own personal relationship, trusting in
the power and multiplicity of God's character as Elohim of the Old Testament.