Today on Mother’s Day, we are going to look at a woman of faith. This woman in our Scripture doesn’t start out as a woman of faith, but she sure ends up a woman of faith….and that is what we need to start with this morning: Whoever you are, and whatever your faith is like – to end up as a person of great faith, you start out as a person of somewhat less faith. Now that may seem obvious now that I say it, but I think, though it may seem obvious, in many ways we expect our faith – to just be there. But you know, God will still you use you even if you don’t have a great faith, we see this in our passage today.
The land is in the middle of a great drought, predicted by Elijah himself. Elijah has been in isolation in the Kerith Ravine, a small tributary to the river Jordan and in verse 8 the word of the Lord comes to him an directs him to go to Zarephath which was in what is today the state of Lebanon.
Now the prophet Elijah, he’s been around, he must know life is going to get difficult. Kerith, where he was staying, means separated, and the name depicts perfectly Elijah’s situation – he was alone, and without human contact for an extended period of time. God then sends him to Zarephath, which means, fiery trial, and depicts perfectly what his situation is going to be. So God calls him out of the frying pan and into the fire. You can imagine Elijah walking to Zarephath thinking, “Holy Smoke, what in the world has God planned for me next?”.
Notice, God doesn’t give him much to go by. God is light on details here. 9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” So, does the woman have a name? What will she be wearing? What is her address? Does she know I’m coming? Do I meet her in the morning? What if I’m late? Does she have a criminal record?
Does God do this to you too? Life is moving along, you’re doing your thing and bam, out of the blue something hits you and you ask, “God, what is going on?” and you get, no details….but still, your in your situation.
We saw this last week with the prophet Jonah. Now with Jonah God doesn’t give many details because Jonah might chicken out and not do as God asks - again But Elijah, he is different, he isn’t like Jonah, he is bold, confident, strong, and faithful. Elijah is a man who will do whatever God asks of him, so why the lack of details? Sometimes God is silent because we are like Jonah and will refuse to walk in faith if we know what is coming. But sometimes God is silent because his awesome power is revealed….slowly. Sometimes the time spent waiting will intensify the impact of the work of God on our lives. Sometimes the wait will make us more than ready to receive the Word of the Lord.
And here is a truth for you: if we have the details in advance, then, we wouldn’t be walking in faith would we?
So Elijah must walk in faith alone with minimal details to his Zarephath, his fiery trial.
Now at the gate he finds our woman of faith. What I love is that when Elijah arrives at the gate – there’s the widow, front and center. He doesn’t even have to look in the phone book, he doesn’t have to ask around, there she is. You know, we want the details of our circumstances from God upfront don’t we? But God supplies the details as we walk in faith – as we step out and arrive where God has directed us, and there are the details, standing right in front of us.
So here is this woman gathering sticks in verse 10, and Elijah calls to her. What he does is play a trick on her, so to speak. Elijah calls her and asks for a drink and as she is going to get the water he adds, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.” In the ancient middle east hospitality was a very big deal. If someone asks for a drink of water, it is rude, even an unspeakable act to refuse the person a drink. It would be shameful for this woman to refuse him a drink of water. She may be broke, she may be at the end of her rope, but she still has her dignity and she can perform this act of hospitality, so she heads for the water jar – but to give away her bread, that is another thing all together. Yet she is trapped by Elijah adding on a second request. Understand this second request is asking for her life commitment, for the request is asking for all she has.
Who was this woman? Her name is not even mentioned is it? What we do know is that she is a single mother who is trying to make it, and it looks like she isn’t going to make it. She is trying desperately to take care of her son, but it is clear that she cannot provide for him. Usually a widow, would have family to help take care of her. Many times a brother would marry a widow in the family to make sure she was taken care of – THAT would make you extra careful who you married, wouldn’t it? But this woman she apparently doesn’t have anyone. If she dies, no one will notice. As a woman she has low social standing and as a widow she has no social standing. She is a nobody, a phantom to neighbors as she comes and goes from her house. She is so much a non person, we never even learn her name. She is literally, a nonentity. At this point the drought has been going on for about 3 1/2 years and she is at the end of her resources. Of everyone who is limited in resources, she doesn’t even make it on the charts.
Hold out your hand, see that, that is all she had, what fits in the palm of her hand. What, is that about 1/3 cup? Note that she isn’t saying no to Elijah, she is just pointing out the physical reality that there isn’t enough for herself, her son and Elijah. She has literally nothing, is nobody and yet….God will use her for great things.
2Cor. 12:10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Do you see what is happening here? Do you understand what God is setting up for both the woman and Elijah? Let me ask you to consider this: If God operates this way in the lives of those found in holy Scripture, why would you expect God to act differently in your life? If the weakness of this widow makes her strong, if the weakness of the Apostle Paul made him strong, why is it so hard to believe the weakness in your life – is what will make you strong?
What do you need for God to use you for powerful things? A weakness. Why is that? Because when I am weak, when I cannot do it on my own anymore, this is when, I let God take over
But wait. Does this woman, who is never even named in the passage, have any faith at all? Look at what she says to Elijah, any faith that may have been there is evaporated. What she has is despair, utter hopelessness, she is lost. Verse 12 “I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” If there ever was a phrase that spoke of faith – that was not it….and yet she is able to have this terrific faith!
At this point does she even know who God is? She is a pagan living in another land where they worship false gods. She is not a Hebrew, she is not a believer. Is God going to expect a person to act in faith, when there is no faith? Not so fast now…there is a hint, we see that she has a tiny, twinkle of faith. We see this at the beginning of verse 12 when she says, “As surely as the LORD your God lives”
She acknowledges that there is a God. There is a start of faith there, is there not? But look at verse 15, “She went away and did as Elijah had told her.” Hold on. Wait a minute. What happened there? Did you see that leap? The woman just did a whole row of hurdles. She goes from a teeny tiny faith to enormously huge faith, she goes from the person with the least amount of faith in town to the person with the greatest faith in town – in the blink of an eye. Amazing!
Elijah asks for the impossible. He asks to be fed first, which will pretty much take all she has. You see that in verse 13. He wants her to make the cake, bring it to him and then go back and make the other cakes. See, she cannot divide what is left to make sure she and her son gets some. She cannot make the cakes and then change her mind when she sees there is not enough left over. She must give away what she has first….you know what she is doing? By all logic and sense she is choosing death for herself and her son. But God, he defies our logic – we see our faith as holding on, when God sees our faith as letting go. When a friend has asked you how things are going in a difficult time in your life have you ever responded, “I’m just holding on”? What you mean is that you are holding on to your faith – right? But here, right here we see just the opposite, letting go….
Now Elijah encourages her – in essence he speaks the Word of God to her, the powerful Word of God, “Don’t be afraid.” 14 “For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’” Right there. I think it is right there where something inside her says, “take the step”. It doesn’t make sense, it defies logic, it runs contrary to everything she may have ever done in her life, and she turns to walk to her house…and she has something that she did not nano seconds before – a real faith. I mean who in this room could do this? Who here could give up all they had, knowing that it would directly lead to their death, and their child’s death. I don’t think there is one of us who could. But I also don’t think she could either – God blessed her with the faith to take the step, and she responds. It is clear that the Spirit has come upon her giving her the faith she needed to take the first step toward the house – and continue on that path of faith. See, instead of holding on, instead of holding tight to the last thing she has, she let go, and upon her came the Spirit.
It is one thing to say you believe another thing to take action on that belief.
So do it. Do it today. What has been holding you back? Some here have been thinking about faith for some time. Do I have it? Have I lost it? What does it feel like? Some here are hoping the faith will slowly creep up on you. “I hope it doesn’t hurt”. Some want to know every cotton picking detail before they take a step. Some here say to themselves, seeing is believing, so they are waiting to see….But this, is holding back. It is standing still, with the illusion of moving forward.
God doesn’t ask her to do anything way out of her ordinary life does he? God doesn’t ask her to build some great church or be a missionary and travel to other lands. He doesn’t ask her to give up her house, or testify to crowds of people – He asks her for a small piece of bread. Granted, it was all she had, but it wasn’t something that was beyond her everyday life. Faith isn’t about huge projects, it is about everyday life. God uses ordinary, everyday, even somewhat boring, been there done that, ways to build our faith. Yet notice it is a spiritual thing that hits her, not a material thing. She has to believe before she takes the action of making the cake of bread, or she wouldn’t make the cake of bread.
She was limited in how God could use her, wasn’t she. She wasn’t much of a person, and she didn’t have much to offer – no – that’s nonsense. Who takes that mother’s day flour and extends it into mother’s day flours? Not the woman, but God. Remember what Paul says? “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
A few blocks below my college was a restaurant that served only breakfast – and it was a great breakfast, cheap. What made this breakfast unique was that, except for the manager, everything was handled by mentally handicapped folks. They were the cooks, the waiters and waitresses, the busboy, the hostess the cashier and anything else it takes to run a restaurant. And this placed hummed. It really was some of the best service in town. It was surprising….Why was I surprised that it was such a great place? Because like many people in our society I had written these folks off. I had seen them as people with very limited resources. Not capable. Unable, below average….and I do the same thing with God; I look at what I do not have, how I do not measure up and I believe I am not much for God to work with.
The woman lets go and the blessings come raining down. It is like the loves and fishes. The flour and the oil don’t run out. The handful, the limited inventory, the one thing that was between her and death – she let it go. The one thing. That tiny bit of faith expands, but there is more to it, for amazingly, she really doesn’t believe yet, I mean it is clear that she believes to some degree, but she doesn’t have a convicted belief.
So this miracle goes on day after day. The ridiculous amount of flour and oil never run out – and life goes on. The great leap of faith that the woman experienced, that amazing moment, becomes routine. What was once so incredible is now expected: One more cake, one more fire….my faith, which is real, which believes to some degree, goes flat. It is just flour and oil after all.
Now you know what Elijah has got to be thinking, “This place is called fiery trial, and it has been nothing but endless eating, what in the world is around the corner?” Verse 17, Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. Ahh there’s the fiery trial. For this single mother, what good is an endless jar of flour, if her son cannot share in the blessing? So of course she is angry, 18 She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”
This woman has had an amazing leap faith and on top of that she has seen the same event repeat itself on a daily bases, reminding her that her faith is not an illusion, it is not something she has deluded herself into believing. She has seen a daily miracle, but the death of her so is just too much.
In verse 19 we see Elijah step into action. Why does he take the boy out of the arms of his mother and into another room? If you are a mother you know that Elijah did not take the boy without his mother giving him up, without letting go. I see that like that moment where she turns to go make the cakes of bread, that moment where she let go instead of holding on – right here she does it again. Again she finds herself in weakness and she doesn’t hold on – what does she do? She let’s go.
Elijah takes him up and lays him on his bed, stretching himself out three times: “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”, “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”, “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”
You know the outcome. God hears his cry, God answers his prayer, the son lives. Talk about a mother’s day present. This woman had a leap of faith when the flour and oil wouldn’t run out, but this time it is different, I don’t think calling it a leap of faith does it justice, it is more of a cementing of faith. You know that she had to believe before – but this is unprecedented.
Verse 24, Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.”
Before, I suppose, she suspected this was all real, but clearly she had her doubts. Now, with the resurrection at hand, there is no denying in any part of who she is, that the Word of God is real and active.
This single mother starts of as a woman who has a tiny sparkle of faith, a faith that is only enough to see her through one more meal and that is pretty much all she has. But you know what, that is enough. It is enough for God to change her world in a split second.
A few year ago Katie and I were teaching our kids how to ride bicycles. If you have done this, you know what I am going to say: you walk next to the bike, then you run next to the bike – the whole time your kid is hanging on your arm with a GI Joe kung fu grip. And then comes the moment, that nano second of time when they stop holding on to your arm and they start riding the bike, which is parallel to our experience in faith, and to get there they have to let to.
Stop waiting for the details. Stop holding on to what you have. Stop holding on to that thing you have been holding on to – and let go.
