There’s a story told in 1 Kings 17 about a prophet named Elijah who delivers bad news to a person in power and is forced to hide out in the wilderness. When famine hits and the local food and water sources dry up, God tells Elijah to go to a town called Zarephath where God says God has ordered a widow to provide for him.
When Elijah arrives at Zarephath, he immediately finds said widow. But not only does she seem unaware of God’s order, she hardly has anything left. In fact, she’s actively gathering sticks for a fire, to cook up her last bit of flour and oil. She expects that this will be the last meal for herself and her son before they starve to death. The prophet tells her if she shares the first few bites with him, God will make sure she has enough flour and oil to make it through the famine. She believes, and feeds Elijah. And the flour and oil never run out.
When this story is told today, the emphasis is almost always on the miracle of provision. It only recently occurred to me how bizarre it is that God sent Elijah to this woman to begin with.
Single moms of young kids trying to make ends meet alone are among that most vulnerable people in every society. This was especially true in the ancient world when men were the sole breadwinners. To be a widow with no grown son virtually guaranteed poverty and could be a death sentence.
God’s prophet is hungry, and God could send him literally anywhere. And God sends him outside Israel to the poorest person for miles around. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work! God should send Eiljah to someone with excess, with more than they need, with something to spare! Why would God be ordering bread from a single mom with nothing?!
When I began to ask this question, three things stood out that began to feel significant:
First, it turns out this widow doesn’t have nothing. She just has very little. This seems important. God never asks for anyone for something they do not actually have to give.
Second, God’s matchmaking of a hungry woman and a hungry prophet ultimately results in provision for both. It appears that God selected her, not carelessly, but because God was worried about this foreign widow and her son.
Third, the provision for this woman’s needs comes through her own sacrificial sharing. And God is the architect of this design. God pairs two hungry people so that both can be filled. God sets up a situation for mutuality, with the flow of giving and receiving moving in both directions.
I know I’m not the only one who often feels quite empty. The tank is low. The cupboard is bare. This can happen financially, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. Then someone shows up at our doorstep whose need is unmistakable. Our first thought is that we have nothing to spare. Surely God wouldn’t ask me to think about someone else. He knows how little I have! Surely the responsibility must belong to someone better off than me.
We often don’t notice how God’s provision for us comes in the act of giving. And in fact we can’t really discover this until we take the risk of sharing whatever we have. I have a hunch that God prefers to work this way, setting up situations of mutuality instead of charity. A rich person could feed Elijah, but that act of charity would help only one. If a poor widow helps Elijah, and he helps her, the number helped turns out to be three. This is God’s kind of math.
In the ministry of Jesus there’s a similar incident where Jesus has a hungry crowd to feed. To solve this problem, Jesus looks into the lunch bag of a poor young boy. The logic seems crazy. Why should this child give up his own small meal when there’s not enough to make a dent in the crowd’s hunger anyway? Yet when this boy’s few loaves are shared, they multiply. And both he and the crowds end up eating their fill.
Self-care culture has caused many of us to become more aware of our own needs and hungers, and that’s not a bad thing. But there’s one thing the self-care gurus often fail to tell us: sometimes the answer to our own need may be initiated in the giving rather than in the receiving. There’s a meaningful difference between having nothing and have a little. Sometimes it’s the generous sharing of the little we have that God uses to initiate a miracle of mutual provision. Sometimes it’s in attending to someone else’s hunger that our own hunger is satisfied.
Self-giving love has always been God’s favorite opening for unleashing miracles.
