Multiplying Our Oil

Day two hundred eighty-three

Since I started working again I haven't had a whole lot of weekends off to spend with my family.  I always have Sunday off, but rarely a Saturday, so I woke this morning looking forward to have a Saturday and a Sunday off!  I made sure to thank Heavenly Father for the job that I have and for the blessings that have come from it, but I gave Him an extra big thank you for this weekend off!  It is so nice to hang with my boys (all 3 of them)!!

2 Kings 4:1-7
I would like to share a true story from James Dobson of a little toddler named Frankie. He was a handful to say the least. One day he pulled a chair over to the front window of his house, and carefully placed it inside the drapes. He was standing there staring out at the world when his mother came looking for him. She spied his little white legs protruding beneath the drapes, and quietly slipped in behind him to see what he was doing. She got there just in time to hear him say to himself in very somber terms, “I’ve GOT to get out of here!”

Have you every felt that way?  Trapped and looking for a way out! Maybe you are facing problems with your children that you cannot solve.  Maybe you're in a marriage that is not good and you are filled with hopelessness.  Maybe you are having problems at work or you have too much month left at the end of your money.  Maybe you feel like you are walking through a spiritual wasteland and there seems to be no way out.

I don’t think anyone but the Lord has the answers to all those questions. Yet, there may be some help in the verses found in chapter 4 of 2 Kings. These verses tell us about a poor, widow woman who was at the end of her rope. She did not know what to do or where to turn. In her pain and her poverty she did the only thing that she knew she could do: she turned to the Lord. When she did that, God came through for her in a very big way!

Verse 1- The problems
She was married to one of the “sons of the prophets”. These were the men who were in training under Elisha to be the prophets and preachers in Israel. Her husband had been taken away from here in death. Since her husband is dead she cannot pay her bills. As a result, her creditors are coming to take her sons away as slaves so they can work off the debt. This was allowed under the Jewish Law (Lev 25:39). She has been deprived of her husband, now she is about to lose her sons as well. She is over her head in debt and she doesn’t see how she can make it.  Have you ever that way?

In spite of all her problems, she has held firm in her faith! She needs help, and in her desperation she turns to the man of God for help. Elisha was God’s representative on earth and he was her best hope. She reminds Elisha that her husband “did fear the Lord.”

Her life has been a life of devotion to the Lord and in her trouble, she still trusts Him and turns to Him for the things she needs. In spite of her pain, her problems, and her lack of possibilities, she still looked up to God for the help she needed. Even though she couldn’t see a way out, she knew that she couldn’t see everything. Even though she didn’t understand everything she was facing, she still believed that God cared and that He could do something about her situation, so she cried out to Him in faith!

At some point, every person is going to arrive at a low point of life. There will come a day when you will reach the end of your rope. Some have already been through it and can testify about it. Others are there right now and are looking for some help. Others will arrive there someday. We will all have our days of trouble and trial (Job 14:1; John 16:33).

When you reach that point, the world and the devil are going to tell you that God doesn’t see and that He doesn’t care. The fact is, He does see (Pro 15:3; 2 Chr 16:9).  He sees everything you are facing. Not a single thing is hidden from His view. And, He does care (Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 5:7). He cares more than you know about what you are facing.

These verses are designed to teach us that our problems, while they may appear to be insurmountable in our eyes, are really just God’s opportunities in disguise. Therefore, no matter what you are called on to face in this life, learn to turn to the Lord first. He cares. He is able. He will work to fill your need!

Verses 2-5 Our Part
It would have been easy for Elisha to have said, “Okay, you have suffered enough. The Lord is going to meet your need. Just go home and wait for Him to work.” Instead of taking that course, the Lord chose to involve this widow in her own miracle. First God helped her to realize what she didn't have. Then, God increased her faith by teaching her trust, humility and obedience. He does the very same things in our lives!

Elisha asks the woman two questions: 1.) What do you need? 2.) What do you have? By those two questions, this woman was made to see the size of her need and the smallness of her own resources. She needed everything and she had very little.  She could not possibly meet her own needs.

After God helped her see the greatness of her need, He began the process of increasing her faith.   Elisha’s second question: “What hast thou in the house?” was designed to teach this widow that it may not have looked like she had much, but in reality, she already had everything she needed to obtain what she wanted. She couldn’t see it, but God had already given her the very thing He would use to meet her need.

Her answer to Elisha is to tell him that all she has is “a pot of oil”.  That little, insignificant pot of oil would be the answer to her prayers!  Some times we are like the widow women, we fail to realize that God has already given us everything we need to get our need met.  We look at our problems and they seem so large. We look at our possessions and they seem so small. Yet, we always fail to factor God into the equation! So, He places us in situations where our faith in Him must be expanded!

The widow is told to go to all her neighbors and borrow all the empty vessels that she can get her hands on. That is a strange command. How do you suppose she explained this to her neighbors? Did she say, “That crazy preacher told me to do this”? Did she say, “Don’t ask me why, but I want to borrow some empty jars, pots and pans”? They might have thought she had lost her mind as she went door to door collecting those vessels. But, what a witness it would have been when the Lord met her need!

Faith moved in that widow’s heart. She obeyed the Lord; she borrowed the vessels and she and her sons shut themselves up in the house and trusted God to do what He had promised to do.  Can you imagine the scene in that little home that day? There is the mother with her sons and all those empty vessels sitting all over that house. The sons hand her the first vessel and she fills it up. She fills up one after the other and oil just keeps pouring out of that little pot until every vessel was filled.   When that day ended, there was a mother and some boys who had learned a valuable lesson. There in the privacy of their home, they learned that God was all-powerful and able to meet every need!

There was enough oil in those borrowed vessels to settle her debts, meet her desires and supply her dependents! God’s supply was far more than sufficient! That is the kind of ability our Father possesses. He is able to do more than we can imagine, if we give Him the opportunity!

What is it that we need in our lives?  What miracle do we need from God?  How do we multiply our oil? 

We follow the example of the widow.  We turn to God, we listen, we obey, we trust, we have faith, and we get our vessels to Him and watch Him fill them up!