Giving Your 'Nearly 'Nothing'ናሙና

What Do You Have In The House?

Today we meet another widow who is also living in a dire situation. It is actually quite interesting how similar her story is to the first we read. She is also a widow, she is at risk of losing her sons to become slaves, Elisha is the understudy of Elijah and she also has ‘nearly nothing’.

However this time, it is the widow who cries out to Elisha for help. She states her case and Elisha is ready and willing to be of service.

2 Kings 4:1-2 NKJV
1 A certain 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 is coming to take my two sons 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 maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”

Elisha starts by assessing the situation and asks her ‘what do you have?’. She has nothing but a jar of oil - nearly nothing. Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you feel like you don’t have much, but you forget to take into account what you actually DO have?

God can use what we have, even if it doesn’t seem like much! God could have easily supplied the woman’s needs without her jar of oil. But He looks at what we have and INVOLVES US! He blesses what we have even if it is ‘nearly nothing’.

It is so easy to get caught up in the fear of not being able to solve our own problems, especially when we feel like we don’t have any resources to help. However, reaching out to others is a resource we shouldn’t forget.

Who do you have in your life who you can reach out to? Are you someone’s ‘Elisha’ that they can reach out to? Do you remember to reach out to God as the first solution to your problems?