Out of Food

Elijah told Ahab, the king of Israel, that God would not send rain again until Elijah said so. Elijah then immediately went into hiding. Although he knew Ahab probably wouldn’t believe at first, after three years of drought and then famine, Elijah knew that Ahab would start hunting for the prophet. And the king was not averse to using whatever methods might be necessary to get Elijah to beg God for rain.

So, Elijah spent the beginning of the drought living in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan river. There was a brook there, supplying his water, and ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening. Eventually, however, the brook dried up. There was a drought on, after all. God told him to go to Zarephath of Siden, where there was a widow who would be happy to take care of him.

The widow didn’t know anything about that, however, and when Elijah showed up at the city gate and asked her for a jar of water, she was happy to oblige. But when he also asked for some bread, she told him, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” (1 Kings 17:12).

Elijah told her not to worry about that, that God promised to take care of her and that “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land” (1 Kings 17:14). So she made him bread, and took care of Elijah and her only son for a long while.

But then one day, her son became desperately ill and died.

She blamed Elijah, but Elijah prayed to God, complaining also, “O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” (1 Kings 17:20) God heard his prayer and raised the boy back to life. The widow then commented, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.” (1 Kings 17:24)

In the New Testament, Jesus is recorded as commenting, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’
“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.” (Luke 4:23-26)

Our parents did not give us everything we asked for at Christmas. With parents, there are several reasons for this. Sometimes, it’s a simple matter of economics: they would love to give what their child asked for, but there is simply not enough money in their bank accounts to afford it. Sometimes, it’s because what the child asked for is impractical for their situation–such as when a family lives in a tiny apartment in the heart of New York City and the child asks for a pony. The child is going to be disappointed.

With God, when we face hard times and ask for help, sometimes the help we want doesn’t arrive. I knew an out of work couple who begged God for work to keep them from losing their home to foreclosure. But the work didn’t come. Their prayers to God for money, for some way out, were met with the same silence. They lost their house.

Does that mean that God was unable to help? Or that it was impractical? We have no way of knowing.

On the other hand, I know people in the same situation who begged God for help and the help arrived in the nick of time.

Sometimes, in desperate circumstances, as with the widow with whom Elijah lived, the cavalry rides in. But as Jesus pointed out, there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s life. Only one got Elijah.

Why?

Neither Jesus nor the author of the book of Kings bothers to tell us.

What of the couple who lost their home? They eventually found jobs and a place they could rent. Within a few years, they’d saved enough to buy another house. Why did they have to suffer the loss of their jobs, suffer the indignity and stress of foreclosure, make-do for years, and only after much effort, finally return to the same status they had before?

Some look at such suffering and conclude that it means there cannot be a God, because they cannot understand why God would allow such misery. Unfortunately, those who argue that way are making the same mistake, in reverse, that those who argue God exists because no one can explain how a given thing works. God-of-the-gaps is a mistake. You cannot prove the existence of God by pointing at ignorance. The opposite, Atheist-of-the-gaps (that no one can explain how come God allows evil and pain) is just as flawed–and for exactly the same reason.