Now the wife of a son of the prophets cried to Elisha, Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. But the creditor has come to take my two sons to be his slaves.2 Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me, what have you [of sale value] in the house? She said, Your handmaid has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.3 Then he said, Go around and borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels—and not a few.4 And when you come in, shut the door upon you and your sons. Then pour out [the oil you have] into all those vessels, setting aside each one when it is full.5 So she went from him and shut the door upon herself and her sons, who brought to her the vessels as she poured the oil.6 When the vessels were all full, she said to her son, Bring me another vessel. And he said to her, There is not a one left. Then the oil stopped multiplying.7 Then she came and told the man of God. He said, Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons live on the rest.2 Kings 4:1-7
I used to live out in the foothills of the Adirondacks on a dirt road. It was beautiful and remote. My husband told all our friends if they were in the area to just drop by. No one took the offer up until one Sunday afternoon when three families dropped by at the same time at supper time! They were hungry and there were fourteen of them. I needed to grocery shop and my cupboard was woefully bare.
I prayed to the Lord. Take what I have and make it sufficient for everyone. A recipe that I had learned from a Vietnamese patient came to mind. It was rice and stir fried vegetables topped with an one egg omelet. I had eleven eggs and fourteen to feed! I needed a miracle.
I proceeded to prepare the dishes, making the omelets one by one. One of my daughters helped me by bringing out the food to the guests who were sitting in the living room. I just kept cranking out the dishes. I knew that three people were only going to get rice and vegetables. My daughter came in the kitchen and said “Mom, everybody has been served”. What? Fourteen people got omelets from eleven eggs! Everyone had enough and I had left over vegetables and rice. I got my miracle!
Jesus takes what people have and makes it more that sufficient – loaves and fishes, water to wine, and in the Old Testament jars filled with oil.
I also knew a woman who was down to her last meal – pasta and sauce- for her family and was days from her next paycheck. She prayed over the food and they ate from that bowl of pasta for a week!
One more. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman who was in a German concentration camp for hiding fleeing Jews in her home. In the camp one woman had secreted a small brown bottle of vitamins into the camp for her children. Corrie prayed over that bottle and they gave vitamin drops to all the children for several years! The bottle dried up when they were released from the camp! God is good!
We can trust the Lord for all our needs. He can use even what little we may have to bless us.
Jesus is Lord!
