Elisha: Hope for Your Desperate MomentsSample

Lessons from Elisha

What can we learn from the prophet Elisha? Elisha was the sole successor to Elijah, and God poured out a double portion of Elijah’s anointing on him as Elisha performed double the number of Elijah’s miracles. Here’s how we can learn from Elisha:

Now the wife of one of the sons 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 children to be his slaves.” And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your son and pour unto all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.” —2 Kings 4:1–7

In 2 Kings 4 Elisha deals with a widow. She was loosely connected with Elisha—the wife of a man from the company of the prophets (v. 1). “You know that he revered the Lord,” she says to Elisha. She is, in a way, putting Elisha on the spot, implicitly making a case that she is entitled to something from Elisha. He does not rebuke her. This does show that Elisha knew the man who died. This also shows that the woman was of some stature—she had access to Elisha. It is sometimes helpful to be connected to someone who has access to a sovereign vessel.

She could have argued: “I need help; that is not going to help me with my problem. What are empty jars going to mean to me?” But she did not complain or question; she respected the wisdom of the prophet although it may have made no sense at the time.

How do you trust God even when He doesn’t seem to make sense?