Hope Unswervingly

Read 1 Kings 17 God instructs Elijah to go to Zarephath where he will find a widow who will provide for him. Elijah again obeys, but when he arrives and asks for provisions, he finds out she has nothing to give. One jar of flour, nearly empty. Just a drop of oil in the jug. Her plan? To bake one last loaf and prepare to die of starvation.  One with less faith than Elijah may have rolled his eyes and moved on, questioning God all the while. This is your provision? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to send me to someone rich who had plenty of extra? But that is not Elijah’s response. Trusting in God’s plan, he offered reassurance and comfort to the widow. He instructed her to go ahead and be hospitable and generous, and that this selfless action would provide for her and her son as well. (17:13-14) Both were obedient to God’s plan. Both helped each other. In their actions, both stopped focusing on their own needs and focused on the other. In the process, both had needs...

Read Psalm 37:23-24 “I don’t know what to do!” My sister and I would start to make this comment during summer vacation from school as soon as the initial novelty of “free time” wore off. My mother would often list off some ideas – some fun, and some work – and we would consider whether each idea was the one we would choose. Eventually, if she didn’t say something we wanted to do, we would decide to go figure it out ourselves - much to Mom’s pleasure, I’m sure. We can easily get caught up in figuring out God’s specific instructions to us in a particular situation. We ask, “What should I do, Lord?” But when we don’t hear a specific answer, this can paralyze us. I don’t know what to do so I won’t do anything yet.   Satan can put thoughts in our head like these: ·          God doesn’t care about me or He would answer. ·          There must be something wrong with me that I can’t hear from Go...