What a Widow’s Last Meal Teaches Us About Trusting God With Our Money
Billy Ritchie
A Prophet With a Track Record
There’s a story tucked into 1 Kings 17 that doesn’t get enough attention. And if you’ve never thought much about the relationship between faith and finances, I think it might be exactly the place to start.
By the time the prophet Elijah arrived at the gates of a small town called Zarephath, he already had evidence. He’d been sent to hide by a brook in the wilderness, and God had sent ravens — ravens — to bring him bread and meat twice a day. His very own heavenly Deliveroo!! He’d watched something impossible happen up close, and his faith was built on it.
Elijah had a track record with God. He’d seen the provision. He knew, from personal experience, that when God says He’ll provide — He provides.
A Woman With Nothing to Go On
The widow he met at the gate had none of that.
She was a foreigner. She wasn’t part of the covenant community of Israel. She had no prophet she’d previously encountered that we know of, no miracle in her history, no supernatural experience to draw on. She was a single mother in the grip of a famine, gathering sticks to make a final fire, preparing what she fully expected to be her last meal — for herself and her son — before they both quietly starved.
And into that moment walked a stranger who said: “Make me a small cake first. Then make something for yourself and your son.”
Feed me first. With your last.
It’s an almost offensive request. And yet — she did it.
The Part That Should Stop Us
What strikes me most isn’t the miracle that followed (though the jar of flour and the jug of oil not running out for the rest of the famine is extraordinary). What stops me is the sequence.
