Zinnias still blooming.
Good Afternoon
1Kings 17:11-15
And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.
What marvelous “coincidences”
are prepared by providential grace!
The poor widow is unconsciously ordained
to entertain the prophet!
The raven will be guided to the brook Cherith!
“I have commanded them to feed thee there.”
Our road is full of surprises.
We see the browning, precipitous hill,
and we fear it,
but when we arrive at its base we find a refreshing spring!
The Lord of the way had gone before the pilgrim.
“I go to prepare . . . for you.”
But how strange that a widow with only “a handful of meal”
should be “commanded to offer hospitality!
It is once again “the impossible” which is set before us.
It would have been a dull commonplace to have fed the prophet
from the overflowing larder of the rich man’s palace.
But to work from an almost empty cupboard!
That is the surprising way of the Lord.
He delights to hang great weights on apparently slender wires,
to have great events turn on seeming trifles,
and to make poverty the minister of
“the indescribable riches of Christ.”
The poor widow sacrificed her “handful of meal,”
and received an unfailing supply.
And this, too, is the way of the Lord.
~~~J.H. Jowett, from My Daily Meditation
Can even I be used . . . Today?
With my prayers, desiring yours, Leslie
Thoughts of Grace 