Bible Study 4-25-08

II Kings 4:1-7

1 The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves."

2 Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?"

"Your servant has nothing there at all, " she said, "except a little oil."

3 Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. 4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side."

5 She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one."

But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing.

7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."

Amazing what God does for us, isn't it?

I don't have to have a lot of stuff, I just have to be willing to do something with what I do have. While it may seem impossible to accomplish great things with just a little bit of something, the truth is that God puts His Super over my Natural and makes miracles happen.

The conclusions I draw? It's okay to start small. Even though it looked like the odds were stacked against this woman, she took the bit she had and trusted God to take care of everything. So, what do I have? It would be a wise move to figure that out. Heh. I have a few swords, a lot of clothes I never wear, a guitar I rarely play...

The most important thing I have, the greatest resource, is God.

On an almost completely unrelated note, there is a line in the Epilogue of the Firefly series; the movie Serenity. Shepherd Book says to Mal, "I don't care WHAT you believe as long as you BELIEVE."

That's really what faith is all about, I think. While I choose to put my faith in God, there are others who don't. Like Shepherd Book, I don't much care what people believe (though, of course, I want everyone in the world to believe the exact same things I do, heh), as long as they believe. There is something awesome and dumbfounding that happens when basic, mere, simple humans start believing in something greater than the physical. It's like a whole world of additional possibilities opens up simply because one has taken their focus away from the limitations of the physical and turned them toward the limitless "beyond".

I think it's pretty amazing that we humans can make miracles happen, simply because of our faith, our belief in something greater than ourselves.

Just a few thoughts I'm pondering.