Faithful Obedience

When we need a new job, the first thing we have to do is get our resumes together. Over the years, these documents have become quite fancy, but a basic truth remains: the resume must demonstrate your readiness for the job and your experiences that make you a perfect candidate for what you desire. You don’t put every single experience or every single skill you possess. For example, I never put elementary school double dutch champion on my resume. No, we put the pertinent information: the information that will appeal to a prospective employer.

When the “certain woman” of our text found herself in a dire situation, she, too, had to make an appeal. But her appeal in this ancient patriarchal society was different. She knew what experience, she knew what acquaintance would be most fitting given her need and to whom she cried. She had to use the credentials of her husband.

The woman lists her husband’s credentials in ascending order. “Your servant,” she begins. He exercised his employment as a prophet and as a subordinate member of the prophetic guild under Elisha himself. He was likely persecuted like the other prophets under Ahab and Jezebel, yet he remained to fulfill his calling and assignment as a prophet.

Then she continues, “my husband…” His work as a prophet, his dutiful service as a junior prophet did not get in the way of his responsibility as her husband. He maintained not only relationship with his job or assignment, but also with her. He remembered he had a wife and children at home. He was her husband.

Finally, she adds the most important bit of information, “and you know that your servant feared the Lord.” It’s one thing to be a prophet, serving dutifully under the senior prophet. It’s one thing to be a husband, taking care of his family responsibilities as best he knows how in such a wicked and oppressive world. But it’s an even greater thing to fear the Lord. It was his fear of the Lord that made his husbandry and servitude all the better. His fear of the Lord kept him committed to every role he was to fulfill. And the woman asserts, “and you know that your servant feared the Lord.” His reverence and respect for God was evident. There was no mistaking or masking it. He was a man of character and integrity, so much so that the woman could begin her cry to Elisha with such assurance about the man he was.

Oh that when we die those around us can say that! Will the people who knew us be able to honestly say that we feared the Lord? Will they look to others who knew us and honestly confess, “You know that she or he feared the Lord?” Not that we believed in God. Not that we were baptized in 1987. But that our lives day in and day out demonstrated that we feared God Himself.

But her cry to Elisha is more than mere name dropping. She has a real need. “The creditor has come to take [her] two children to be his slaves.” It’s likely that the torment and oppression under King Ahab and Queen Jezebel has made life for a devotee of Yahweh hard. They took possession of many of God’s prophets lands, drove them into exile, and even killed some. For many, they “converted” to prophets of the idols to save themselves from persecution. But this was not the case for this woman’s husband. Despite those circumstances, he remained committed to God. But this commitment did not come without a cost. He likely was unable to do more than take care of the day to day needs of his family. There was no surplus of money or goods. He likely went into debt, paying what he could along the way. But his death left the debt for his family to discharge. He was not living lavishly or selfishly. He feared the Lord. We know what it’s like to fear God and still have ends not quite meet. Many of us know the hardship of doing the right things and emergency situations arise that cause us to go into debt.

The prophet, knowing her husband and knowing the severity of a woman left alone with no sons to care for her, asked, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She had likely sold all that she had to discharge her debt. There are no mink coats hanging in the closet. No antique furniture to auction off. It’s all gone. “Nothing,” she says, “except a jar of oil.”

In the right hands, what one could make with such meager goods! The child looking in a stark pantry sees “nothing,” but in Mama’s hands is a full dinner of beans, rice, and cornbread. To a new driver, that tank looks empty, but in the hands of that car owner, we can get back and forth to work until payday if I go only to work and straight home.

She says, “nothing except a jar of oil,” and God tells Elisha to tell her, “Go, borrow vessel at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels; do not get a few.” We wonder at this word. She is already in debt, but the solution begins with borrowing more. She is to go to all her neighbors, not just the ones she likes, not just the ones she knows well, but all of them. She is to get as many as she can get. He tells her “do not get a few.” Then he adds to the command: “Go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.”

This is not an easy word from the prophet. Our humanity steps in and causes us to question: I told you I’m in debt and about to lose my sons, and you tell me to go borrow vessels. Lord, I’m hungry and thirsty for more, and you tell me to fast. Lord, I’m lonely send my husband, and you tell me to stop dating and isolate myself. This command doesn’t match.

You see, we come to God with our needs. We cry out to Him. He tells us what He wants us to do, but we say, “No, how about the next job offer I get, I’m jumping on that. The next man who smiles at me is my husband. Thank you, Lord, in advance for bringing my man!” That’s not biblical. That’s flesh. God says to the woman in debt, go borrow vessels. We want to cry out to God and dictate His response. What if the reason why you don’t have what you need is because you keep telling God what you are going to do? What if you miss the reward God has for you because His assignment “doesn’t make sense” to you? God says, “I know the plans that I have for you.” God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.”

What do we do when what God is saying to us doesn’t seem to match the request we have? There are three points, all found in Verse 5, of how to move toward provision that God has for us. Here we would do ourselves a favor to take a page out of this certain woman’s book. She cries out to the prophet and he gives her her marching orders. Now what?

So she went…That’s a whole word right there for someone. You’ve cried out to God in desperation. You have done everything you could do to right the situation, but things are just not fitting together. You cry out to God. He speaks to you, but he may not reveal the totality of the plan. He doesn’t here with this woman. He just gives her the next steps. She could have done like many of us. She could have complained that God is not near. God doesn’t hear. She could have said, “He’s a false prophet. Telling me to borrow vessels.” But she doesn’t do that. The Bible says, “So she went…”

Fast and pray, my child. So he went. Stop updating your profile, my child. So she went. Go to Sunday School, my children. So they went. Wake up 30 minutes earlier to spend time with me, my child. So she went. This is not about what you want to do. God is telling you how to become free of whatever creditor is hounding you. Will you listen?

We try to use the Bible to justify our disobedience. “The Bible says to wait on the Lord. So I’m just going to sit right here an wait.” The Bible does say to wait on the Lord, but it also says,

Psalm 130:6 “My soul waits for the Lord More than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.”

There is a job to do even while I wait. The night watchmen worked their shifts, keeping an eye out for any advancing evil or danger. They waited for morning expectantly, hopefully. Their wait was not lazy or passive. Theirs was an active, dutiful wait.

What activity is God ascribing to you in your time of waiting on His provision, his deliverance?

Will you go? Will you get up from the place of your crying out and go and be about what God has told you to do?

For many of us, we won’t move unless we know the full plan. We have more faith in a GPS system that only gives us commands one step at a time than we do God. We sit there and wait for God to lay out line by line, play by play His plan. Notice, the first thing God says through Elisha is “Go.” We have to get up off our behinds and get moving. We cannot just sit there. We cannot keep hemming and hawing. We’ve got to go. So she went.

She shut the door behind her and her sons…Elisha told the woman to shut the door behind her and her sons. There are times in our lives when God wants our attention totally focused on Him and what He has told you to do. He knows that outsiders may influence or distract you. He knows that the rumors and gossip from the streets will take your mind off of Him. He knows that the judgmental eyes and questioning from others will cause you to doubt His word in your life, so He commands you to shut the door.

Block that number of that friend with benefits. Shut the door. Go to your car to pray on your lunch break instead of gossiping in the break room. Shut the door.

God can work in any and all situations, but we aren’t God. We need to be away from the things and people that will cause our minds to be distracted or influenced by anything but Him. We need to keep our focus on God. We need to be fully devoted to Him. We cannot allow outside noise to taint our communion with God.

Stop telling all your business. Stop trying to get validation and confirmation from people who don’t know anything about you or your relationship with Him. He said, “Shut the door.” This blessing, this deliverance comes with relationship with me. He wants our eyes fixed on Him. He wants dialogue with Him. He wants devotion to Him. Notice, Elisha is not there. It’s just this woman and her two sons. God wants no confusion about where this miracle is coming from. He wants no discrepancy in these facts. Shut the door. It’s just this family and God in the place.

And she poured…As her sons brought vessel after vessel to her, she poured. She allowed the task God had for her to be her focus. She poured. In her faithful obedience, she took that “nothing except a jar of oil” and poured it out into every vessel. She poured. She watched God multiply the little into fulfilling her every need. She poured. God told her to pour, and that’s exactly what she did. She did not take a break. She did not question what she was going to do with all that oil in all those vessels. She just poured. She allowed her faith in God, that somehow He would make a way that would allow her to keep her sons, to drive her to keep on pouring. She did not get tired. She poured. She did not give up. She poured. She kept her nose to the grindstone and vessel after vessel she poured that nothing except a jar of oil into those all those vessels. She poured.

That’s our recipe for faithful obedience. When Go says, “Go,” we’ve got to go. When God says, “shut the door,” we’ve got to close ourselves up for a private, deep conversation and meditation on Him. When God says, “pour out,” we’ve got to consume ourselves with the doing of the assignment He has for us. Our faithful obedience doesn’t create the provision. God already has a heavenly storehouse full of blessings. Our faithful obedience releases provision. God is just waiting for us to do what He told us to do. He has it already prepared. That nothing we say we have is more than enough in God’s hands.

After she had filled all that there was to fill, she asked for another vessel. She had been so consumed with what God told her to do that she did not realize there was nothing left to do. “That’s it,” her son said, and the oil stopped. When she went and told Elisha all that had transpired, he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.” Surely, if she had been obedient up until this point, she was obedient even in this. Again, though, she had to “go.” She had to sell the oil. There was yet more work to do. But on the other side of that selling, there was relief from debt. She could pay off that creditor. But God did not simply free her. He allowed her an abundance that she and her sons could live off of.

I love this story of miraculous provision. It reminds me of the greatest need we ever had being fulfilled. One day, we, too, were heavily in debt because of our sin. We tried everything we could to live right to do right but still we found ourselves sinking into debt. Our creditor, too, came to possess us. Satan came to enslave us. But Jesus, went. God said, “I’ll go.” He took our sin upon Himself. He left His place in glory to be a sin offering for us. He went to earth to accept the shame, ridicule, and abuse of the cross. His sacrifice shut the door to hell for all who would believe. He shut the door to guilt and shame. He shut the door to our debt. And he poured Himself out for us that we may be reconciled to the Father. His blood, poured out on Calvary covers every cent we owe. We, like that certain woman, not only have our debt paid in full, but we also have abundant life. There is so much love, so much grace, so much power left over that we can live new lives free from sin and debt. We are resurrected with Jesus to live life abundantly. We don’t carry the past with us. It’s paid. It’s all paid.

The biblical record doesn’t tell us how the woman responded knowing that all was forgiven. But I can imagine that when she looked at what could have been, the miraculous love and provision of God stirred a shout in her. I imagine that there was some worship on her lips, some praise on her tongue. I imagine she could not contain the joy of knowing that the God she was so faithful to consult was faithful to her. Will you have such faith? Will you be willing to go, shut the door, and pour out all you have in the name of Jesus? Will you trust Him with your life, allowing Him to clear your debt and usher you into new life?