What Do You Have In Your Hand? Series

There have been evenings that I have not been able to sleep or have woken up and just lay in bed thinking and worrying about all kinds of things. I do not know about you but when it is dark and you are lying in your bed not sleeping and thinking about your issues it seems like they are gigantic.

They just seem to get bigger at night.

I suppose money is most people’s problem. How are you going to pay accounts or get through until the end of the month?

2 Kings 4:1-7 The story of a widow whose husband a son of the prophets died and left her with lots of debt. This widow came to the Prophet Elisha fearful because a creditor had threatened to take her two sons as bondsmen unless she paid the debt that she owed.

The prophet Elisha asked her, "What do you have in your house?"

The widow first says “I have nothing in my house, …but I do have a small jar of olive oil.”

That was all God needed

When we are worried about how we are going to provide for our families or pay our debts the question in our minds should be what do we have? What is in our hands?

Psalm 13 David feels forsaken and questions God on the problems in his life. But as you continue to read the Psalm you see how David encourages himself and ends the Psalm with thanksgiving for what he has and what God has done for him.

It is so important that when we are in despair and feel like God is not answering our prayers, we think back and remember all the promises that have been fulfilled. That we look at our circumstances and see all that God has given to us.

Our families, our homes, our cars. The food we eat and the clothes we wear and the comfortable beds we sleep in. Our physical health and spiritual well-being.

Maybe we do not have much but what we do have is so much more important.

What answers has God already placed around you? Sometimes you just need to look around you. Don’t let fear and doubt make you focus on the circumstances. Circumstances can cause you to think that God does not answer your prayers. As I have said in a previous episode. The answer to your prayer is already in your heart. The word dwells inside of you.

John 14:12 Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Elisha then told the woman “Go around and ask all your neighbours for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. 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.”

Once the jars were filled, Elisha told her “Sell the oil and pay your debts and there will be enough money left over to support you and your sons."

So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out the oil.

The scripture does not say how many jars there were, but I would like to believe she did not just have few jars. She must have had a heap of jars.

Verse six says “There is no jar left, the oil stopped flowing!” Had there been more jars, the oil would have kept flowing.

The miracle for the widow and sons went only as far as they were willing to believe and take action. I think the widow had great insight and did not want to lose her sons so she collected the maximum amount of bottles possible. I know that we must trust God but he lets us participate in the miracles. We have to hear our Father and do whatever He tells us.

John 2:6 Mary Jesus’ mother said to the servants at the wedding where the wine ran out,

“Whatever he says to you do it”

"Jesus said to them, “Fill the water pots with water”. And they filled them up to the brim. Not halfway, full to the brim.

The important lesson for us today, is that with every answer to prayer, there is an action we have to take. Before a miracle, there will be a word from God.

When Jesus is about to change water into wine, he first gives an instruction. "Fill the water pots with water."

John 9:7 A man born blind from birth. Jesus said to him, “Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.” The man went away and washed. When he came back, he could see.

Matthew 12:13 The man with the withered hand. Jesus is going to restore it, and he says, "Stretch forth thine hand." Oh wow! The hand was restored.