What 1 Kings 17 Tells Us About God's Perspective on Provision

I was pondering for a while recently on the widow from Zarephath and Elijah’s dealings with her. 

This little piece of history is so rich in truth and so pertinent to our world today. The setting is a nation rampant in idolatry, led by the royals, Ahab and Jezebel. The record notes that God was withholding rain from the nation. 

In today’s terms, the nation is in a recession, maybe even a depression. This is the backdrop into which God commands Elijah to go into the town of Zarephath where a widow will provide food for him. To Elijah’s credit, he obeys.  

Just a quick comment on Elijah’s faith. God’s command appears to be an odd one. 

First, God tells him to go to Zarephath– a town outside of Israel in Sidon, the birthplace of Jezebel with deep seated roots in Baal worship. God is sending him to notorious Baal worshippers to get his provision. Not to Israel. 

But it gets even more interesting. 

God sends him to a widow. 

Now in that era, a widow has no means of support. The husband was the sole provider in the culture. Without a husband, a widow would be supported by her son if she had one. There is no reason in the natural that Elijah would have thought he heard this from God. But he must have known God’s voice well enough to obey. So off he goes. In faith.

He heads to the town and finds a woman gathering sticks and proceeds to ask her for a drink of water and a morsel of bread. Not a large request, but the woman is destitute herself. 

Her response is interesting, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die” (1 Kings 17:12). 

She has a son, but he must have been too young to provide for her. She assumes this is their last supper. She would prepare it for her and her son, and then they would die of starvation.  

This is wild. 

She begins with the phrase “As the Lord your God lives.” She lives in Sidon, surrounded by Baal worship, the god of storms, and somehow knows the God of Israel lives. But just knowing that doesn’t give her any hope. 

In the midst of a chaotic environment, she’s alone with her son expecting to die. 

We can relate with the onset of the pandemic, loneliness and isolation are at an all-time high. Women made up 58% of the government service industry and single mothers held a disproportionately high rate. Given the lack of child and elder care, many had to leave the workforce to take care of children or elderly parents and many others were laid off. Their situations look bleak but at least there were some social programs to lean on as needed. The widow had no one. 

Elijah tells her she’s to make him the bread anyway, and then adds this promise– “The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth” (1 Kings 17:14). 

With such little interaction, how would you know if this is truly a man of God who hears His voice? She could have obeyed out of fatalism– that feeling of “I’m going to die anyway so who cares if I give away the rest of the food.” But she had a child, so that’s hard to imagine. I would propose Elijah was so full of faith and the love of God, that it overflowed onto her. I’m not sure she even knew why she obeyed, as we’ll see later in the story. Elijah KNEW who his Daddy was– a perfect loving Daddy who would provide for all his needs. And hers.

God came to this widow in the midst of a desperate situation, and through Elijah, met her needs. 

But she had to obey. And obey she did. 

She took the little flour and oil and made bread to give to Elijah. “And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah” (1 Kings 17:15-18). The widow did the natural, and God did the super!

Notice a few things. 

God didn’t just open the floodgates and pour out bags of flour and jugs of oil. This was no get rich quick scheme. Nor was it a one-time miracle. She also didn’t give the last of her provision for God to make her the local baker. She had to keep her faith engaged, day in and day out, as she used the flour from the jar and the oil from the jug– maybe even wondering if this day would be the last day. Every. Single. Day. 

Not only was God providing a lasting supply of food, God was also doing something deeper and richer– building a lasting deep faith. She’s learning who her Daddy is. And, wow, would she need it.

So, Elijah becomes a roommate living in an upper room. And things go south. Her son gets sick and dies. In her grief she blames Elijah, assuming God is judging her for her sin. Most of us would be confused at this point. The widow is being provided for and probably expecting her son would grow up to then provide for her. That’s the way the culture works, so she may be expecting God to work within the cultural norms. She has faith in God during the desperate situation, but when things begin to look up, her faith shifts back. 

Enter another crisis.

Elijah is on it– crying out to God to let the boy live. And he lives. And the widow responds, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth” (1 Kings 17:24). Now. Now she knows? What happened to the flour and oil miracle? She didn’t know then? 

This widow and her child have a destiny. To accomplish what God has for us, we need money and health. The provision of both comes from our perfect Daddy. Given the culture surrounding us, that can be a challenge that may require “crisis” to get us on or back on track. 

At the end of the day, a deep rich faith is the wealth of the Gospel. Then we can be as Elijah, walking in such faith and love, it oozes out onto others around us.