Day 14: Empty vessels and abundance.

Have you noticed a theme so far? Are you starting to catch on to the habit of enough? 

Scarcity + Sacrifice = Abundance. 

From the moment I started to recognize enough, more and more stories from Scripture have come alive with meaning and significance. 

Are you ready for one more? 

This one takes place with another widow (different from the one in Day 6). 

The backdrop? Desperation, poverty, an emergency. This widow had lost her husband and the debt collectors had come to call. They were threatening to enslave her two sons as payment. Frantic, the widow ran to find a prophet of God, Elisha. 

And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” 

And she said, 

“Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 

 SCARCITY. 

 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.”

{ 2 Kings 4 }

Knowing the might of Yahweh, who had delivered His people from slavery and humiliated worshippers of false gods, Elisha knew that this would be a small thing for the mighty One. He was, after all, the God of { more than } enough. 

So quickly this old woman gathered pots and jars from the neighbors. And she started to pour the little she had left. 

SACRIFICE. 

She watched her last and only jar of oil drain slowly and I'm sure she wondered why she was wasting her time. Surely God would preserve them through the wisdom of the prophet, but what good was pouring out when she had so very little to give to begin with? 

Some days (some months, actually), I feel as if I'm watching the very last of what I have seep away and I too am wondering why I'm pouring when I am already so lacking. Human nature tells me to hide the little I have- it's sacred and it's mine. Self-preservation mode is my immediate reaction to scarcity. But the wisdom of Heaven is counterintuitive. It's countercultural. It goes against all human wisdom.  

So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. 

When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” 

And he said to her, “There is not another.” 

Then the oil stopped flowing. She came and told the man of God, and he said,

 “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

{vs 5-7}

ABUNDANCE. 

Again, we see the miraculous provision of our { more than } enough God. His generosity is like clockwork, right on time, just the right amount, and always when His children need Him the most. 

So why do I still worry when I'm running out? 

I should be grateful and expectant when I can see the bottom of a jar, when my energies are drained and my joy is depleted. Scarcity is the backdrop of miraculous things. I'm hoping that the more these stories show up on my journey through 31 days of Enough, the more this promise settles into the anxious places of me. That the more exposed I am to instances of His abundance, the more I truly believe it whole heartedly. I pray this for you, as well.