No One Knows the Trouble You’ve Brought Part 3

2. Obedience is not easy

The Lord had another lesson for Elijah as well. When he instructed the widow to make him a cake to eat she told him that she had only enough flour and oil for one small cake. He then gave her this promise, “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
The flour speaks of the Word of God and the oil of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit would be sufficient for the day.

The woman had a choice. She could take her sticks, flour and oil and make a small cake for her and her son, eat it and then die or she could make a cake for Elijah. Whatever the choice she made she expected to die. In the first case later than in the second case but death appeared to be inevitable. It is the same with us. We can take our gifts, talents and abilities and use them for our own comfort or we can give them to God. When the widow gave her fits to God He blessed her and her son. She did not know that when she made the choice to make the cake for Elijah that God would preserve her life. Like the widow we have no guarantee of the outcome of our choice but we can be sure of this fact: If we keep the gifts and talents for ourselves that we will not be blessed.

However, after a period of time the woman’s son died. Why he died we do not know but we do know that man’s problems are God’s opportunities. Many times I have looked at a list of prayer requests and have been overwhelmed by the problems but then the Holy Spirit reminds me that they are opportunities to see the work of the Lord.

I am sure that as Elijah stayed at the woman’s house that he had spent many hours in prayer. What was the result of his prayer? The woman’s son died. Just as prayer can bring hardship upon ourselves as we saw when Elijah was at Kerith it can also bring hardship upon others. Many people treat prayer as a good luck charm but prayer has nothing to do with luck. Prayer is asking God to take control in our situation or the situation of others and when He takes control then the results will surprise us. As we said in our last study, God is more concerned with our holiness than He is with our comfort.

Concluded tomorrow LW