Give It to Me

The following message was given at the Oahe Manor service Sunday, June 17.  The scripture was 1 Kings 17.

The prophet Elijah goes to Zarephath, at God’s command, and meets a widow.  Let’s think about this widow a little bit.  She was living in an area where almost everyone worshipped the false god Baal, and it’s likely that she did, too.  Yet God said that he was going to command this widow to feed Elijah, and God must have done so, because when Elijah asked for food, the first words she said to him were, “As the Lord your God lives.”  God must have spoken to this widow, and she must have recognized God as a god.  Not the God, maybe, but at least a god.

           

And the amazing thing is that, even though she did not claim God as the God, look at what she did.  When Elijah asked for food, she first told him that she had almost nothing and had no prospect of ever having anything.  She had just enough that she could make one last meal for herself and her son, that they planned to eat that, and then they would die.  And Elijah still tells her to give some of that little bit that she had to him, and that if she did, she would never run out of food until the drought was over.

           

Now, what would you do if you were in her place?  Would you just say, “Sure, no problem” and give this guy, who you’ve never met before, some of the very little bit of food you have?  Or would you say, “You idiot, didn’t you hear what I said?  My son and I are going to starve, and you think I should give some food to you?  Get out of here!”

           

Seriously, which one of those seems like a more likely response?  Yet, look at the amazing thing this widow did.  This incredibly poor woman, who did not claim God as her god, still trusted God enough to do what Elijah told her to do.  She went and gave him some food.  Think about the incredible faith she had.  She had enough faith that she trusted a God who wasn’t even her god.  She may not have loved God, but she trusted God.  And God rewarded her and gave her enough food to survive the drought.

           

But look what happens next.  The next sentence tells us that “after this”, the son of this woman got sick.  Not only that, but he was so sick that there was no breath left in him.  In other words, he was dead.  Now, we aren’t told how long after this it was, but we know Elijah was still there and that what had happened was still pretty fresh in this woman’s mind.  So she went to Elijah and said, “Hey, what’s going on here?  What did I do to you?  You came, and I did what you said, and now my son is dead.”

           

How many times have we done something like that?  Something bad happens, maybe something very bad, and we go to God and say, “What’s going on here?  I followed you, I tried to obey you, and yet you did this to me.”  We do that all the time, don’t we?  It’s a natural reaction to sadness and pain—we blame God for it.

           

But where we make our mistake is that, too often, we don’t wait for God’s response.  Look at what that response was here.  Elijah did not get mad at this woman.  He didn’t criticize her for blaming him, or for blaming God, for what happened.  Instead, Elijah simply said to the woman, “Give me your son.”  And she did.

           

Now, notice something else here.  Elijah did not say what he was going to do if this woman gave him her son.  He did not promise to bring her son back to life.  He did not promise to do anything.  He just said, “Give me your son.”  And the widow obeyed him and gave her son to him.

           

Then Elijah prayed to God.  He did not just say a quick prayer and expect an immediate result, he cried out to God, and he cried out repeatedly.  Eventually, God heard his prayer, and brought the son back to life.  And when the son came back to life, and Elijah gave him back to his mother, the widow came to truly believe in God, and to believe that God is indeed truth.

           

What happened to that widow can happen with us.  God tells us to do what she did:  turn things over to God.  When bad things happen, when we don’t understand what’s going on or why, when it seems like things couldn’t get any worse, and when we feel like yelling and screaming at God and blaming God for what’s happened, God won’t get mad at us.  Instead, God just says, “Give it to Me.  Turn it over to Me.  Let Me have your sadness, your worry, your fears, your problems.  Let Me have your tragedies, your anxieties, your doubts.  Let Me have it all.  I’ll take care of it.  Just give it all to Me.”

           

That’s what the widow did.  It’s what we need to do.  When we’re miserable, when we don’t understand what’s happening or why, even when we blame God for what’s happening, we still need to trust God.  We still need to give everything to God.  We need to trust God enough that we can give everything to God without any promises, without any assurances, without any knowledge of what will happen when we do.

           

It’s tough to do that.  There’s nothing easy about it.  But we have an advantage over this widow.  We know God loves us.  We may not know exactly what’s going to happen, but we know God loves us.  We know God’s not looking to punish us or give us what we deserve.  We know, instead, that God will give us much better than we deserve.

           

Whatever’s in our hearts today, let’s turn it over to God.  It may be something in your own life.  It may be something in the life of a loved one.  It may be something that concerns a friend.  It may be something that concerns society as a whole.  Whatever it is, let’s turn it over to God.  Let’s trust God enough to give everything to God, not knowing exactly what will happen, but knowing that whatever God does, it will be for the best.