Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you(Elijah) with food. 1 Kings 17:9,10
Israel and the whole region were suffering under a severe famine because of the prophet Elijah’s decree(no more rain) and things were desperate. When Elijah ‘came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks’. He asked her for some water in a jar and a piece of bread(a big ask from a stranger in a drout). Then the widow begins to tell him her plight, she only has enough flour and oil left for one last meal for her and her son, they’re going to eat it and die(she didn’t know Almighty God still had a plan for her life).
How many believers are so downtrodden and lacking in hope today that we think there’s nothing left for us? But the Lord’s plan for the widow and her son was not death, but life. The prophetic was about to break through into her situation, though she lived outside Israel(God’s people). Elijah told her to first make ‘a cake of bread for him and bring it to him and then make something for yourself and your son’. Give away some of the precious little you have left and then came the prophetic decree;
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 gives rain on the land. 1 Kings 17:14
She did what Elijah said and what God had commanded. Sometimes our salvation is our calling and it’s not always the public ministry that’s most important. The whole area, Israel and beyond, were in a desperate state. This widow had been given a hidden ministry, to feed one prophet! That was her entire responsibility, she may not have known that Elijah held the key to the drout. Many hidden, faithful servants, known only to the Lord, will be richly blessed after their service here is over.
Faithfulness in difficulty rewarded. In verses 12 and 13, before Elijah prophesied, it’s the woman and her son, but in verse 15;
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. 1 Kings 17:15,16
Her family, usually the extended family, were fed through her obedience.
Jesus Himself referred to this widow in Luke 4:26 while speaking in His home town of Nazareth. He told the people that Elijah hadn’t been sent to a widow in Israel, but to this widow in Zarephath. God is Sovereign and chooses whom He pleases to serve Him. The Jews tried to kill Him but the time and place were wrong so they couldn’t touch Him then.
A hidden ministry and unnamed widow, known only to the Lord, but she saved her family.
For truly I say to you that those who give you a drink of water because you belong to Christ will not lose their reward. Mark 9:41
God bless you today in your service to Him, nothing is forgotten.