(2 Kings 4:1-7) Now a woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” 2 So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 3 Then he said, “Go, borrow containers elsewhere for yourself, empty containers from all your neighbors—do not get too few. 4 Then you shall come in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour into all these containers; and you shall set aside what is full.” 5 So she left him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they began bringing the containers to her, and she poured the oil. 6 When the containers were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container.” But he said to her, “There are no more containers.” Then the oil stopped. 7 So she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
(2 Kings 4:38-44) When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting in front of him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” 39 Then one went out into the field to gather mallow, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds; and he came and sliced them into the pot of stew, because they did not know what they were. 40 So they poured it out for the men to eat. But as they were eating the stew, they cried out and said, “You man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they were unable to eat. 41 Then he said, “Bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot, and said, “Pour it out for the people that they may eat.” Then there was nothing harmful in the pot.
42 Now a man came from Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give them to the people that they may eat.” 43 But his attendant said, “How am I to serve this to a hundred men?” Nevertheless he said, “Give them to the people that they may eat, for this is what the Lord says: ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’” 44 So he served it to them, and they ate and had some left over, in accordance with the word of the Lord.
TODAY'S THOUGHTS AND MEDITATION:
God is not some big cash machine or wish-granting-genie in the sky! As our perfect heavenly Father, He wants to have a close relationship with all His children. He desires that we look to Him, and depend on Him for everything. So having faith in the Lord means that we can trust in Him to provide when we love His wise advice enough to put it into practice. But, we don't always do that.
My first question here is, why was this man of God in debt? Why didn't he do a better job at managing his finances and providing for his family? Did he have a secret gambling-addiction? Or, did the wife have an extravagant shoe-shopping habit? Or, did the parents give everything to the children so that they could have experiences and the things they never had as children? Or, maybe they did do the very best that they could.
Even when we are doing all the right things, things can happen, for sure, and we can continue looking to the Lord for help and guidance. But it never hurts to do a self-check and ask ourselves, are we doing as God tells us? We are told to be thankful in all things, so do we stop to thank the Lord for everything we have? We are told to pray always, so do we pray before buying a house, car, appliance, or going on vacation trips...? Do we pray as we are figuring out a career or looking for a job? We are told to work hard (and not be lazy). We are told not to squander. We are told to invest wisely. And we are asked to tithe and give generously.
Many believers really struggle with the idea of tithing. With all the other things, we can still feel like we have "control". Even with the woman in this passage, she had less than nothing, so "what would it hurt" to trust the Lord at this point. But in giving to our church a minimum 10% of everything we make, we are really putting our faith and trust to the test. To give AWAY money that could be used elsewhere, and wondering, will God perform some sort of miracle? This requires faith and trust! And yet, God says in...
Malachi 3:10 "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and put Me to the test now in this,” says the Lord of armies, “if I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows."
In tithing, we are really only giving to God a portion of what He actually deserves! God has given us everything, and He only asks for 10 % back... and then promises to bless us when we obey Him in this! The Lord does provide! I have heard many testimonies from people who took a step of faith and started tithing, and they are always amazed at how God came through for them. And there are different ways this can happen. One particular person said, "We don't make any more than we did before, and yet now we have more than enough to pay all the bills, with extra money leftover."
Listen, even while living at poverty level a few times in my life, as I tithed, I always had everything I needed, including peace, joy and contentment. Although, we can still do or think silly things. Well... at least I can. Like, after buying a new shampoo, because the shampoo that I was using was running low... I became impatient because I wanted the shampoo to be finished so I could start using the new shampoo... but it took forever. Well, I had to change my attitude on that! I should be thankful when God makes it so things last longer!!! So very thankful!!!
Looking at the bigger picture, all too often, we expect God to just make us rich with cash so WE can "solve" all our problems. Or we expect others to bail us out when we run ourselves into trouble. But in our relationship with God, He wants us to continually look to Him for our help and guidance. The Lord wants us to rest in Him, being content, and without worry, trusting in the fact that He's got this!
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