The Widow, Her Oil.... and a Receivable?

The Widow’s Olive Oil

4 The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

² Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”
³ Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. ⁴ Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”
⁵ She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. ⁶ When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
⁷ She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”


I shared this story with the ladies from church last night, but it is worth repeating.  In fact, the more I read it, the more it speaks to me.  Isn't that what delighting in God's word truly means?  Just sitting on a passage for awhile, meditating on it and letting God speak to you through it.


So, if you read the quick story above, you'll notice it is about a widow.  She must be young as it calls her children "boys", not men.  Her husband is dead, but he "revered the Lord".  Right away, I start feeling her pain.


In her distress, she cries out to the Lord.  If you walked with me around my house, you would see and hear me crying out to the Lord, often out loud, sometimes just under my breath, but always in my head, asking for his mercy on our family, for the burden to be lifted, for patience to endure, for wisdom in our daily living, but most often, I pray for RM - for success in his business, wisdom in his dealings with others, wisdom as he leads our family, strength through the long days.  I cry out to the Lord a lot.


The similarities do not stop there though.  The widow is crying out to the Lord because her husband's creditor's are after her - they want to take her boys as she can't pay her husband's debts.  I do not have creditor's coming to take my children, but I know RM has suppliers calling him all the time.  The problem is he can't pay them until he gets paid.  They don't care.  They want their money now.  So they call and call and call.   I know this, though half the time he doesn't tell me as he knows that can stress me out. 


This week the money was due to a key supplier (you want to keep your suppliers happy if you want to do work with them in the future).  We wouldn't be seeing money for at least another 3 weeks.  What to do.  More crying out to the Lord.  Then the thought occurs to RM, "What do I have in my house?"  Just the way Elisha asks the widow.  It had honestly never occurred to him before to ask for the money he was owed (the receivable) early.  We don't like to do that as we have to take our money at a discount, but this time, we didn't care, it was worth the discount in emotional output alone.  The only problem was, would our customer pay early?  They don't always have their act together enough to do that either.  But it was worth asking the question.


It was at this point, I hit the BMW in the parking lot.  I think this was why I was feeling so emotional on that day.  I knew money was tighter than ever, so when I hit that car, I fell apart as I thought, "We're done for."  I could relate to how the widow must have felt when they were coming to get her boys.  I felt like the creditors were coming to get my husband's reputation.  That was when my son prayed for me and that the customer would pay early.


When I got home from the fender bender, I emotionally shared with my husband what had happened.  He handled it well, like I wrote before, and that was when he shared they were going to pay early.  It is interesting to note that the customer made it a condition that they would only pay early if the receivable was below a certain amount.  It was, only a few dollars below.  That is interesting to me, and far from coincidence, because just like the widow was told to go and sell the oil and pay her debts, she was also told to live on the remainder.  Guess what?  That's what happened to us.  The receivable was enough to pay our main supplier and then there was leftover to live on.  Incredible.


It seemed we had "nothing at all".  There was no oil, or was there?  It seemed we couldn't participate in any miracle, but God gave RM the idea to approach the customer and they said yes.  The timing was perfect.  Sometimes God doesn't involve us in the miracle, other times he does.  Either way he gets the glory and I'm convinced it was because he knows we are not perfect, but we are trying to "revere God" just like the widow's husband.  By involving us, our children get to see how God is providing, you get to read it, I get to share it with others and hopefully more and more, others will come to know this miracle-working God.


The pressure is off - the Lord filled our jugs with oil.  We see his hand again.  If I lived in Bible times, I'd build an altar as a memorial, along with the many others we'd have built by now, so that we'd never forget his goodness to us.