Now a certain woman of the wives 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. 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.”  2 Kings 4:24 NASB

Elisha was a prophet in the old testament whose ministry began around the year 848 B.C.  He performed a number of miracles during his ministry.  In this particular situation a woman approached Elisha. Her husband had just died and her sons were being taken into slavery to pay off the husband’s debt.  All she had in the house was a jar of oil. Things were pretty bleak for her at this point.   She cried out to Elisha for help.

Elisha told her to empty jars and go and borrow all the jars she could get from her neighbors.  He told her to begin pouring the oil she had into these jars.  She sent her son to gather jars and she filled them.  She continued to pour until there were no more jars left.  She had so much oil that she was able to sell enough to pay off her husband’s debt and live off the rest.

We often use the analogy of a glass of water.  Optimists always tend to see the glass as half full, where pessimists see the same glass as half empty.  Now I am sure that you know people where their glass is always empty and there is no hope of getting a drop of water, right?  These are the people that even if they won the lottery, they would complain about the taxes they had to pay, they would find many things to grumble about.

In this widow’s case, though, it was not a matter of her being an optimist or a pessimist, the simple matter were things were not looking good for her and her sons. She cries out to the prophet Elisha and he asks her what she has.  She has only a jar of oil, just one jar.  But Elisha tells her to get many, many jars and pour from that one jar filling as many jars as she can find. She didn’t run out of oil, she ran out of jars.

The moral of this story is that God’s supply was as large as the woman’s faith and obedience.  Are your circumstances not what you had hoped they would be?  Is God telling you to step out on faith and giving you instructions? Are you being obedient to him? Maybe you are only being blessed enough to match your faith and obedience, have you ever thought about that?

If your glass is empty, God can fill it until it runs over.  But, you must do your part. You must have faith and you must obey.  Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.  The hymn Trust and Obey was written by John H Sammis in 1887, but those words hold true today.

I don’t know what is going on in your life, but I do know that if you put your faith in God and obey Him, He will work it all out for your good (Romans 8:28). If you want your glass to be full, trust Him and obey Him.

Have a good day!