A Widow’s Miracle
by
Steven S. Bryant
*Desperation Cries Out*
_’Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out
to Elisha, ‘Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your
servant feared the Lord; and the creditor has come to take my two
children to be his slaves.” _II Kings 4:1
We may have forgotten her name but we will never forget her portrait. In a
single verse, II Kings paints a picture of complete desperation with human
features. Her husband is dead and she grieves. In the sleepless teary nights
following the funeral, she tells herself, Nothing could be worse than this.’
The next day she opens her mail and learns for the first time of the
astronomical debt which now falls to her. It couldn’t be worse; the death of
my husband and now the death of my financial security.’ She’s right, it
couldn’t be worse, until the next day when then the cruel heartless creditor
pounds on the door and issues the ultimatum: ‘Either pay up now, or I’ll
take your two sons as payment.” Can anyone imagine a worse predicament?
Hardly so. She is truly a picture of desperation. Gaze again at the portrait
and she becomes for us a picture of what to do when we fall into despair.
Like this great woman of faith, don’t linger long in despair.
Notice how she takes the initiative to do something about her problem. She
has hardly been introduced to us when she seeks the help of the Almighty
through His representative, the prophet Elisha.
_The first great life lesson the Widow teaches is this: Don’t linger long in
desperation for it is the most dangerous state you could ever live in. Seek
God’s help. Cry out to Him_.
This is what life looks like when you see only through eyes of despair:
· a possibility of difficulty is viewed as a certainty
· a serious illness is always terminal
· a troubled marriage always ends in divorce
· a financial crisis always ends in bankruptcy
· and, the current crisis of your life will only get worse.
And this is what the big picture of life looks like through eyes of despair:
· those dark clouds out on the horizon will always bring storms
· the poor will always be poor
· the homeless will always be homeless
· our nation will always be at war
· our people, always divided
· and, all of life is spiraling downward toward a miserable end.
*How do we fall into despair?*
You know that old saying about bad things coming in threes? You can fall
into despair when three comes and is followed by four, five and six. Despair
comes when there seems to be no end to our sorrow. So, in one sense, despair
is a response to the heavy and painful waves of sorrow that overwhelm us.
But in another sense, despair is something we fall into when we have been
trying for far too long to handle our problems by ourselves. You may have
the fortitude to weather one, two and three all by yourself. Good for you!
But when four, five and six come, you are going to need help. People in
despair are invariably people who haven’t turned everything over to God.
He’s there to help. He can turn our sorrows into joys. We just have to be
willing to cry out to Him.
_Ask the members of your circle to think of the people in the Gospel record
caught in despair who cried out to Jesus. List as many as the group can
name._
One such soul is found in Luke, chapter 18. Verses 35 through 43 tell the
story of a blind beggar by the roadside who _’cries out”_ (verse 38), and
then _’cries out all the more”_ (verse 39) as Jesus is passing by. Luke
uses two different words to describe the blind beggar’s voice. First, it is
simply a shout or a loud voice. But the cry of verse 39 would best be viewed
as the scream of a person who teeters on the razor’s edge of life and death.
Like the widow of II Kings 4, it is a cry of complete and utter desperation.
The widow of II Kings has lost nearly everything dear to her. The blind
beggar of Luke 18 lives in a world of darkness, loneliness and hunger. But
notice what happens when Jesus hears a cry of desperation. Luke says that
Jesus stops. (verse 40) That’s glorious good news! _’Jesus stopped.”_ The
cry of desperation stops Jesus in His tracks. It gets is undivided
attention. It captures His loving heart, because Jesus cares about desperate
people. God cared about the widow’s plight. Jesus cared about the blind man.
And He cares about you.
Are you sinking into desperation? Cry out, and your Rescuer will come!
*An Invitation to a Miracle*
_’And Elisha said to her, ‘What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you
have in the house?” And she said, ‘Your maidservant has nothing in the
house except a jar of oil.” Then he said, ‘Go, borrow vessels at large
for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels; do not get a
few. And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and
pour out into all these vessels; and you shall set aside what is
full.”_ II Kings 4:2-3
Upon first reading, some may want to take issue with Elisha’s seemingly less
than pastoral ways. _’What do you have in the house?”_ he asks. She has
almost lost everything dear to her in life, she stands on the brink of
losing it all, and he wants to know what she has in the house! She comes to
Elisha with the problem of her enormous debt and the potential consequences
and what does Elisha command? _’Borrow_!” Isn’t that precisely how the
problem was created? But before you come down too hard on Elisha, remember
that he is simply God’s representative. God speaks through the prophet and
God is not asking the woman for an inventory list or for advance payment of
services soon to be rendered. He’s inviting her into a miracle!
Today, too many church folks want to dismiss the miracles of the Bible. They
don’t like miracles because, as they say, ‘they’re illogical and
unnatural,” and not the kind of thing that intelligent believers believe. I
don’t get too upset with them for thinking such things. I just pray that one
day God will change their minds with a stunning miracle, and I’ll bite my
lip to keep from saying, ‘I told you so!”
Philip Yancey, in his book, _The Jesus I Never Knew_, says:
_’Some see miracles as an implausible suspension of the laws of the
physical universe. As signs, though, they serve just the opposite
function. Death, decay, entropy, and destruction are the true
suspensions of God’s laws; miracles are the early glimpses of
restoration.” _
Yancey goes on to quote noted theologian Jurgen Moltmann: _’Jesus’ healings
are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly
natural’ things in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.”_
Do you believe in miracles? Your Savior certainly did. He performed the 42
miracles recorded in the Gospels. How many more went unrecorded? Survey the
miracles of Jesus and you will begin to understand that He never displayed
such power to dazzle us, but to reveal something profound about the heart of
God. Look too, at the recipients. Most of them are the kind of folks the
world doesn’t give one wit about. He healed the blind, the lame, the lepers,
the deaf. With healing hands He touched the outcasts, the unclean, and the
unloved. And to think, that some who would claim Christ as their Lord would
dismiss His miracle working power; that which is so central to His being and
to ours.
One of the greatest minds of the Church, Saint Augustine, believed in
miracles. He taught us that miracles happen all the time, and that miracles
are perfectly natural. Augustine believed that what we call a ‘miracle” is
simply when God chooses to do very quickly what He ordinarily does
gradually. For example, Augustine draws our attention to the first miracle
of Jesus at the wedding feast of Cana. Water was turned into wine. Augustine
celebrated the miracle, but what he wanted us to understand is that the same
miracle is taking place all the time! Who makes the rain fall? Who causes
the sun to shine? Who places life into the heart of the seed? Who makes the
seed sprout and grow and produce abundant fruit? Who holds the secret to the
finest wine making? The answer to each question is a resounding ‘Only God
can!” Water is always being turned into wine. The fact that it sometimes
takes years makes it no less miraculous.
Another great saint of the Church, my oldest son, Stevie, has taught me
another great life lesson about miracles: *Usually, in miracle making, we
want God to do all the work. But in most of God’s amazing miracles, He calls
us to join Him in the process.*
Fourteen years ago, I prayed for a miracle. After a very difficult labor,
Elizabeth gave birth to our first born. Words could not express my joy. I
watched the pediatrician examine my son. He held out his fingers so that
Stevie could instinctually grasp hold and pull himself up. Over and over
again the doctor tried. Stevie tried too, but couldn’t. His arms seemed weak
and flaccid After watching the examination for what seemed like hours, I
sensed that something was not right. I asked, ‘Doctor, what’s wrong?” With
great compassion he said, ‘I think your son has Downs Syndrome,” and
suddenly celebration turned into desperation. Elizabeth was strong. I fell
apart. I turned to God in prayer and tearfully asked for a miracle. Sinking
deeper and deeper into the cold darkness of despair, I prayed with clinched
fists the same prayer over and over:
_’Lord, let the diagnosis be wrong. Please, Lord, do something about
this. Spare my son from this kind of life. Change him, Lord, you have
the power to do it. Please, God, give us a miracle.” _
God heard that prayer and answered it with a miracle, but not with the kind
of miracle I was begging for. The life that needed miraculous change was not
Stevie’s, but mine. That still small voice spoke these assuring words to me,
_’Work with Me. You will see miracle after miracle through this boy’s life,
but you will have to work with Me.”_ And that, we have! The miracles I’ve
seen in the past fourteen years are too great to number. Here are just a
few:
Five Presbyterian churches in Africa were built in Stevie’s honor by the
good people of First Presbyterian Church of Nashville. It was miracle that
involved a great deal of human participation.
One day, while sitting in the bleachers cheering for his little brother,
Stevie said, ‘I want to play baseball too.” Not long after that another
miracle came. The Challenger Baseball league for physically and mentally
challenged children was inaugurated in Vicksburg, Mississippi, followed by
the Buddy Ball basketball league and Camp Silvercloud, a summer day camp,
all of which involve hundreds of special needs children and many faithful
volunteers in our community.
Miracles have happened. Lot’s of lives of countless special children have
been richly blessed. God worked the miracles but He called us into the
process. God said, _’I’ll do My part. You give me your best, and together we
will see a miracle.” _
Three years ago, another miracle was born. Jacob’s Ladder Learning Center, a
Christian special education school, was created for mentally challenged
adolescents. God did it, and He gave us the privilege of joining Him in the
miracle.
And the miracles keep coming! On Mother’s Day last May, I presented our
congregation’s first ‘special” confirmation class, including Stevie. There
they were, standing before the congregation to profess their faith in Jesus
Christ – it was nothing less than a miracle!
There may be times in the future when I’ll need to pray for the conventional
kind of miracle, one of those sudden, dramatic, inexplicable reversals.
Mostly though, I’ll be praying for the kind of miracles that involve me and
God working together, side by side, hand in hand, just like the widow of II
Kings 4.
_’So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they
were bringing the vessels to her and she poured.”_ II Kings 4:5
She needed a miracle and she had the faith to do her part. What was her
part? ‘…*and she poured.*” There behind closed doors, she and her sons
experienced a miracle of Divine/human cooperation; the most beautiful kind
of miracle, and certainly the most fulfilling!
In my mind, these final words of verse five are the most significant words
in the entire story. Why? Because so often, despair causes us to want to
throw in the towel, to give up, to lay down and die. But God is Almighty. He
doesn’t need much. Remember, He created the Universe out of nothing. When
there seemed to be nothing left, God still had something to work with. Not
much. Just a broken heart, but one still full of faith. Just a little jar of
oil, and a willingness on the part of a truly great woman to say, ‘Okay,
Lord. I’ll work with you. I’ll do my part.” God lifted her above despair.
She poured, and poured, and kept on pouring. God filled, and filled some
more, and kept on filling. And together she and God experienced one of the
many glorious miracles of Divine/human cooperation.
_’And it came about when the vessels were full, that she said to her
son, ‘Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, ‘There is not one
vessel more.” And the oil stopped. Then she came and told the man of
God. And he said, ‘Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your
sons can live on the rest.” _II Kings 4:6-7
Friends, you don’t have to linger in despair. Cry out. He hears and will
come to your rescue. Prepare for God to do what only He can do. Get ready
even for a miracle. And don’t look surprised if He invites you to join Him
in the miracle making!
*Closing prayer:*
Almighty and powerful God, Lord of miracles, Giver of new life, we come
before you with great humility of heart and mind. We know how small we are,
and how great Thou art. We praise you for this opportunity to pray. You know
our concerns and we lift them to your throne of grace. There are people near
to us who find themselves in the darkness of despair. Hear our cry on their
behalf. Bring healing to the sick, comfort to the grief-stricken, peace to
those who are anxious, and your presence to those who feel absolutely alone.
And Lord, we dare to pray even for miracles! If it is in your will, use us
in the miracle making. We’re ready! We may be feeble and flawed, but Lord,
we are willing. What a great privilege and joy it would be to serve you, and
to serve Christ in our neighbor. Send us into a world of despair to shine
the glorious light of the Savior! In His strong name we pray, Amen.