If a person's need for food, water, clothing and shelter goes unmet, to
that person God is not able to provide. God's provision can come in many
ways. A job which most people prefer. Assistance from the church or
assistance from Government welfare programs. Either way, God has
provided. It is not wrong for a person to count or rely on any one of
these methods for God's provision as God has elected to use these
methods for helping the poor and needy.
I whole heartily agree with this brother!
What the Lord brought to me to remember was a time not too long ago that I found myself in bad need! My husband and I both had no work at this time and while trying to find work our family was down to below the necessary needs to survive on a daily bases. We had gotten to the point that I had less than 24 hrs. before the power company was going to cut us off! They refused to make pay arrangements with me because neither of us were employed, so in a sick and frenzied panic I go to the outreach ministry here, I drove our car that was on fumes in the tank praying, hoping and semi-trusting that this place was going to at least help me to keep my kids warm in the dead of winter by helping to pay that power bill or even just enough of it to persuade the power company not to cut us off. I kept thinking surly if someone would just help us get a little more time we could find work somewhere!
I actually sat there in a small office with this woman at the ministry wiping tears and choking back sobs of desperation and fear while she watched me fill out all their paper work. She watched my hands shaking as I tried to answer all the questions and hand her back that paper, after she took the paper and started looking over it, I remember sitting there and using the sleeves on my coat to wipe snot and tears off my face as I looked behind her at a box of tissues she had placed far out of reach for anyone but her self..I was thinking how pathetic, I can't even get a tissue to blow my nose..
The woman finally looked up from the paper and said we can't help you, there is no one working or receiving income in the house , our funds are for those that have a way to help themselves, if we pay this bill for you we have no guarantee that you will be able to keep the power on next month, sorry.
It is truly a breaking point when even the churches cast you off into helplessness..I can't tell you how badly this affected me, I had spent yrs. supporting this ministry in all they were doing, donating food, clothes and items for their used goods store. I had donated my time, money and gas into helping them raise funds, not just me but my children had also participated in collecting food door to door for their food bank...
I walked out of their office that day stunned with reality of knowing what that woman said was true. I could not even blame them for not helping me! I knew if I had been that ministry, I would have reasoned it the same way they did, I would have found that helping someone like me in a situation like mine to be pointless and useless too...not of any real help at all. I would have judged it as taking from those that could make good use of it and giving it to someone that did not have a way to make it into something useful..it would have been throwing money away. Knowing this about myself did not help the hurt and disappointment I felt that day.
What did help was the calm that overcame me when the Lord showed me myself in that ministry and had me reconsidering my own self and the way I think and treat others in their times of need...and I while I quietly walked out of that ministry office that day considering it, I walked straight into the help He was sending me! I didn't even have to go looking, he was just there an old friend smiling and jarring me out of my stupor with happiness to have ran into me! This friend automatically assumed that I was there on my usual assignment to drop off food or donations just like him, he was there volunteering his time to sort the dropped off items for the store. After I shared with him that I didn't have anything to drop off, that I was actually there asking for help, he just smiled and handed me ten dollars for gas and said, "you ran in the wrong direction!" He sent me 20 miles in the other direction to social services, said go ask them, so I went and they paid the whole power bill which gave us three more months of power to get by on until the work came...
The Lord blessed me at both these places!
Way to often people are expecting the prophet to come and work a miracle
without having to first provide for the needs of the prophet. They want God
to work the miracle first before they give their last cake to the prophet.
Everyone is a prophet in the end times..
Since I experienced what it is like to be cast off into helplessness even by the churches for the same reasoning that I used to have...I have reconsidered my reasoning and my doings, for I have very little doubt that when the Lord is saying NO in one place it is for good reasons and there seems to always be a lesson in it for me..
Just like Elijah walking away from that brook when the answer there was no, he didn't hanging around hoping or begging he just walked away..for Elijah to accept that God placed him into a helpless position needing to rely on God to send help, Elijah actually got to call on another before time in asking a widow to do something not heard of before our Lord came and set the example for us...
The widow had already gave up all hope of her and her son being saved, she knew they were going to die after that last small meal...Elijah asked her if she would give up even that last crumb for another (him), will you give up your life for another? Had nothing to do with Elijah beng a prophet or man of authority, had everything to do with can you truly love another in giving up everything you have to help another...
I don't feel so bad about that ministry not giving me what should have been mine that day..my last crumb in knowing that it was the last, I can truly say please give to someone that has a way to make it keep going for them..
The Lord has floored me into awe of Him again in knowing that all I was able to recieve at that ministry was $100 to help pay a power bill and when my heart said give it to another that can make good use of it, for it is a last crumb to me...He opened the door for another to pay a $540 bill and give me more hope and time, exactly what I had asked Him for and hoped I would get from Him...
The widow's faith was not in Elijah it was an act of faith in God
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