No limit on Resources

It shall come to pass
That before they call, I will answer;
And while they are still speaking, I will hear.
Isaiah 65:4

What is that a photo?! I know it's kinda weird looking. I'm actually taking a risk by posting that. I do have some 'normal' or rather easily identifiable photographs taken for this day, but decided to post this one as it's posing a challenge to me. For a while now, I've been collecting different images that I can use in someway as parts of designs, and this is a photo of the leaves of a tree blowing in the wind. I don't know yet how I'm going to use it, but I'm going to do something with it and post whatever I create with it, within a week. So I'm making myself accountable!

In looking at our current global economic crisis, I'm also looking at the hard economic times in biblical days to see how God provided for His people then. So today, I was looking at the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 17. Elijah appears on the scene and declares there will be no rain until God says so. For an agrarian society, that's a pronunciation of doom. Without rain, there are no crops, and the economy then revolved around agriculture.

Elijah becomes a man on the run but God has already prepared a place for him to hang out. God told him to go hide by the Brook Cherith, which becomes Elijah's place of provision for the time being. God commands ravens to bring Elijah his food twice a day, and Elijah has his own water supply with the brook. But after a time the brook dries up because there has been no rain in the land (v7).

Now I thought that interesting...God supernaturally provides Elijah's food, but the brook still dries up because there is no rain. Couldn't God have supernaturally sustained the water supply as well?

Of course He could have, but the rest of the story shows me a couple of things I found interesting. God tells Elijah to "Arise and go to Zarephath...and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you" (v9)

Elijah obeys and sure enough--when he came into the city he saw a widow who was gathering sticks. However this woman was down to her last bit of flour and oil and she was going to cook the last meal for she and her son, and then just die. She didn't have any more resources...she thought. And in the rest of the story, we find that by her doing what the prophet told her to do that the flour and the oil did not run out-- therefore she and Elijah and her household ate for many days.

Now the scripture tells us that God had in someway let the widow know He was sending someone for her to provide for. So that had to mean He was going to provide for her as well. But she got down to her last meal before the answer showed up.

Also, though God could have supernaturally provided water for Elijah, he didn't. Elijah, though a righteous person who was in the will of God, was affected by the drought just like everyone else. He had a resource that dried up and he had to move on. But God had a place for him to go. And he became the answer for someone else. It's like he and the widow formed a joint venture that benefited them both.

As I'm thinking about this series of events, it's another example of how God provides for us when we trust Him. Lets me know that it doesn't matter if the resources I've depended on in the past have dried up. He still has provision elsewhere, and when I'm willing to get out of my comfort zone and move on when He tells me, it can mean not only a blessing for me, but for someone else as well.