Have you ever felt stretched to the limit… yet God asked for more? Did you respond with anger and bitterness, or with faith that God would provide?

This might seem an academic question to many of us, but it was a very real, immediate problem for the widow in 1 Kings 17:7-24. How would you have acted if you had been in her place?

1 Kings 17:7-24

Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to [the prophet Elijah]: “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive 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.”

Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

“Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”

Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.” — 1 King 17:7-24 (NIV)

Questions to Consider

1. At the beginning of this passage, God tells Elijah that He has directed a widow to provide for him. When Elijah arrives, the widow makes no mention of this. What do you think God meant?
2. Why do you think the widow agreed to prepare food for Elijah, despite her own dire situation? What do you imagine went through her mind when her food stores weren’t used up, as she expected?
3. Why do you think the widow was angry at Elijah when her son grew ill? Do you find her attitude baffling, or understandable?