God’s “Holy Experiment”
Walking with God involves obedience and trust, when we obey and follow God, others are blessed too!
If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ.
Source: https://utmost.org/updated/getting-there-3/
Giving ourselves to God increases our “inner creativity”. What does this mean? Consider Elijah’s situation when God sends him to a widow.
Images created Night CafeStudio. Scripture passages from Berean Standard Bible available online at biblehub.
1 Kings 17:7-16
Has God led you to do something or go somewhere that didn’t make sense to you or others? In today’s encouragement blog, we follow Elijah as he obeys God even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. First, the wadi where God had sent Elijah to live has dried up and can no longer sustain him. Have you ever thought that if you just followed/served God then things would be easy? Elijah’s experience teaches us a key aspect of following God: obedience.
Jesus teaches that to follow Him is to “take up our cross” and “deny ourselves” daily dying to our self. Elijah has already confronted the wicked King Ahab, received nourishment in the wilderness from ravens, and obeyed God. Eljiah is being obedient; yet the stream still dries up. God isn’t finished yet!
God works through our lives and circumstances. Holy Spirit guides us as we obey and align ourselves to God’s purposes. Creativity comes as we trust, obey, and walk with Him daily! God leads us into opportunities to grow in faith. Our response is creative in the sense that each opportunity moves us into new experiences and requires discernment and dependence on Him!
Evil, Foreign Land
Now for the next task: go to Zarephath in Sidon to a widow who will provide for you. Understand that Sidon is the homeland of the evil Queen Jezebel wherein her father rules as king. God is sending Elijah to a foreigner widow who lives in a baal worshipping nation! How does Elijah proceed? He obeys and goes to Zarephath. Bible Archaeology Society describes the history and religion of Sidon:
For a Jewish Prophet this would have been inconceivable! Leave God’s nation and go to a pagan non-Jewish widow! Elijah obeys and meets the widow. The widow provides a drink of water then Elijah requests some bread. The widow makes it clear that she is preparing the last meal for herself and son! Yet, she honors his request!
Why might God send Elijah to Sidon? Where there no widows in Israel who needed help during a three year drought? Jesus comments on Elijah and Elisha in Luke 4:24-25
25But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon. 27And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. Yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
Important Context
Jesus has just left the wilderness desert temptation and begins His public ministry. He reads from Isaiah in his hometown of Nazareth. The people are enraged and try to walk him off a cliff! That’s how offensive this statement is to his hometown neighbors! The issue is God’s grace and miracles extended to non-Hebrew individuals.
Elijah and the Widow’s Obedience
First Elijah obeys and then the widow. Both individuals were obeying God’s Word even when things didn’t make sense! God graciously provides for Elijah, the widow, and her son. God takes care of three people at once!
Jesus mentions this account in Luke 4:25-26 and Elisha’s healing of Naaman to teach the universal nature of God’s kingdom. The audience becomes enraged and attempts to drive him off a cliff. Why were they so enraged? Because the Messiah dared to show that God’s grace and provision(s) are for others even pagan neighbors. The audience realizes the religious significance of foreigners receiving God’s sovereign blessing and reacts with murderous rage toward Jesus.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Elijah-widow.html
It’s important to notice that God DIDN”T provide a massive sack of flour or a barrel of oil! God provides enough for each day and no more. The miraculous provisions allowed survival in a time of drought and starvation. Notice that the drought didn’t just affect Israel but the entire region. Drought was an attack upon the baal idols who supposedly guaranteed rain and fertility. Suffering and death are universal. Are you walking daily with Christ, trusting Him to fulfill His Word?
The Well of Life
In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh.
Source: Chambers as cited previously
Obedience to Holy Spirit brings a well spring of life that refreshes us and others!
Words of Grace & Hope 
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