The tale of two widows... the second widow: a story of empty containers.

The second widow's story that I was remembering this morning is found in 2 Kings 4: 1 - 6. This woman only has “a small jar of oil” when the story begins, but the prophet Elisha tells her to go around and borrow as many empty containers as possible from her friends and neighbours. So the woman goes around everyone she knows and gathers as many jugs and jars as she can. She doesn't ask them to give her oil; she simply asks if she can borrow some empty containers. Then she starts to pour from her little jar of oil, and the oil miraculously just keeps flowing and flowing. I can imagine that this woman’s friends were just as excited as she was to hear about this miracle and to know that they had been part of making it possible.

As I prayed about this story, back in summer of 2008, I realised that I had been feeling embarrassed to keep on asking people to pray about my financial situation - about the fact that I still didn't have sufficient monthly income to cover my living costs and ministry costs when I moved to Spain. I think I was sometimes afraid that speaking about finances would offend people – that they would think I wanted them to feel sorry for me, or that they would feel manipulated and think I was “hinting” that I needed money. 

But that wasn't the case at all. I hadn't felt that God was telling me to ask anyone for money, but I did feel that I was to keep asking for prayer. We are so dependent on other people’s prayers whenever we are in times of stepping into something new, especially something that seems much “too big” for us, financially or in other ways.  In the story of the second widow, she didn’t ask her neighbours to give her the oil that she needed to live on. What she actually did was to ask them for “empty containers,” and then it was God who filled the containers for her. I felt God showed me that people’s prayers are like the “empty containers” that those neighbours gave to the woman in the story. In the NIV translation of the Bible, Elisha specifically tells the widow, “Don’t ask for just a few; ask for as many as you can.”  You see, when the containers ran out, the oil ran out too.

As I read this story, I felt God put on my heart that I was not just to ask once or twice for prayer, but I was to keep on asking for as many “empty containers” as possible; I wasn't to feel embarrassed about asking people to pray for my financial needs - because I’m not asking them for oil, I’m asking for their empty containers - and these people will share in the miracle: the blessing of seeing answered prayer when God fills the containers. 

As you read in the post above this one, the way God "filled" my empty containers in 2008 was not initially by providing more money; it was by providing another person to share the costs, and by leading us to a house rental option that was within our budget at that time. 

Nearly fifteen years later, I am again asking people for empty containers. I am asking you to join me in praying that God will guide me to the new home that I'll live in for the next season of my life and that He will provide, in whatever way, all that I'll need in order to live there.

I’m sure that the people who gave containers to the widow in the Bible story had their faith boosted by seeing God do a miracle and knowing that their containers had been part of it. If you are one of the people who has committed to partner with me in prayer, I'd like to say a really big thank you for that. I promise that I'll let you know the exciting story of how your empty containers get filled up by God this time.