Hard Times

 

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the Lord.  But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”  “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked.  “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”  “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.   And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors.  Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you.  Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.”  So she did as she was told.  Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another.  Soon every container was full to the brim!  “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons.  “There aren’t any more!” he told her.  And then the olive oil stopped flowing.  When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”  2 Kings 4:1-7

Many people I’ve known have lived through some tough times.  The widow who came to Elisha was down to family facing indentured slavery because they couldn’t pay their debts.  There were no reserves, bank accounts, or 401K from which to draw.  She went to Elisha and told her tale of woe.  And, it’s Elisha’s question that has always intrigued me:  …what do you have in the house?  The woman’s answer was one of those “duh” moments…no food, just a little cooking oil.  Had I been Elisha I’d have been stumped.  A small flask of cooking oil won’t pay off debts that calls for debtor’s prison.  But Elisha wasn’t stumped.  He told the woman to start pouring-out that oil.  And it didn’t stop until they had no more room to store any more.  Every debt was paid…and some oil left over to boot.

Isn’t it curious how some miracles are connected with what is already available to us? 

     ·       The woman had only a little oil left.  Elisha’s mentor, Elijah, had also met a poor       woman[1] who was down to her last meal.  Same result – God’s multiplication of the flour barrel’s contents. 

     ·       Jesus fed 5,000 men and their families from a basket with just a small boy’s lunchbox.[2] 

     ·       Ten lepers came to Jesus with less than nothing, so they simply brought themselves.  Jesus took the diseased skin they possessed and turned them into new people.[3] 

     ·       When the wedding at Cana had run out of wine, Jesus took the water they did have and the joy of the day was not only complete, it was the best ever.[4]

Sometimes, when we shake our heads in amazement over the miracles, we are forgetting the fact that the God who created everything is still there, still the same, and still knows how to provide for every need we face.

For You Today

If you’re facing some hard times, remember that you have something God will use to turn your world right-side-up!  Every person in scripture who had a miracle change their lives just needed to listen and act on what God was saying.  Remember, Jesus took the pain of scourging that took him to the brink of death, mocking that was undeserved and crushing, a cross, and a borrowed grave…not the kind of inventory anyone would like to count on for retirement…and he turned that less-than-nothing of resources into the salvation of souls for anyone who would trust in Him.  If your hard times have never included trusting Jesus…that’s the first miracle your life needs.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] 1 Kings 17:8-24

[2] Matthew 14:13-18

[3] Luke 17:11-17

[4] John 2:1-11

First Cut

 

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration.  The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother told him, “They have no more wine.”  “Dear woman, that’s not our problem,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”  But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Standing nearby were six stone water jars, used for Jewish ceremonial washing.  Each could hold twenty to thirty  gallons.   Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”  When the jars had been filled, he said, “Now dip some out, and take it to the master of ceremonies.”   So the servants followed his instructions.  When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over.  “A host always serves the best wine first,” he said.  “Then, when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine.  But you have kept the best until now!”  This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory. And his disciples believed in him.  John 2:1-11

Jesus clearly told Mary his time hadn’t yet come.  But Mary pushed on with the expedient, asking Jesus to save the wedding party from embarrassment over not having sufficient wine for the festivities.  Imagine balancing the weight of a little glitch in the wine supply for a wedding reception against God’s plans for eternal redemption; there’s hardly a comparison.  But, cutting Mary a little slack, she’d seen her son do some pretty miraculous stuff; it was not odd she’d count on her son to save the day…again.

This was Jesus’ first public miracle, and, like the first cut a stone mason or sculptor makes on his selected rock, it set in motion what would come.  To say that first cuts are important is to understate it by many miles.  A mistake of one degree of lattitude or longitude in a trip across the USA can mean you wind up in Alaska instead of Seattle.  If that one degree is on a trip to the sun, the margin of error increases to light years.  The bigger the undertaking, the more precision in choosing the path is required. 

The timing of Jesus’ public display of his divinity is history for us; it happened at a wedding.  Whose wedding, and why this wedding, is beside the point; Jesus chose to enter the first cut of stone in this building of our redemption at Cana with water turned to wine.  And, in the matter of the water of human souls, Jesus is still doing just that…taking the common, everyday, impure, undrinkable water of our lives and making that first (and every) cut that turns them into a celebration.

We tend to wonder if we’re on the right course – if we’re somehow missing the best navigation of life – if we’re going to wind up in unchartered territory, far from what we…or even God intended.  But the master mason is never uncertain about the first cut. 

For You Today

Have you got any unusual-looking marks in this stone of your life?  Have you wondered what your artist is working on in that job, family crisis, or doctor’s report?  Maybe it’s time to remember Cana.  Be like the servants that day following Mary’s directions…do whatever HE tells you. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©