What Is Your Resources

Two Women and the Same Prophet

In 2 Kings 4 there are two women and the same prophet. Both of them with a need. The same chapter, two accounts placed side by side. It is begging for a scale.

And I believe they are placed there on purpose. That is my reading of the way the chapter is arranged.

So I am not going to hide from it. I am going to make way for the Holy Spirit to minister what He wants me to see in this today.

One thought she had nothing, and came asking. One seems to have everything, and asked for nothing.

And what I see when I put them on the scale is not how much faith they had. It is what each of them could carry, and what each one did with what was in her hand.

Now I am going to borrow a word from a parable of Jesus and use it as a lens. Second Kings never says these women were measured according to ability. Matthew says it of the servants in that parable. I am the one carrying the word over, because it helps me describe what I see.

According to his several ability. The master measured them before he handed anything out. The portions were not equal, and the measuring was not careless.

The First Woman Came in on Her Husband’S Name

She came to meet the man of God and she brought her husband into her first sentence, and what it sounds like to me is a complaint. Everything after this in the section is how I hear her, and Scripture does not tell me her motive.

My husband is dead, he feared the LORD and you know it. And my sons are about to be taken. Every word about fearing God in that sentence belongs to him.

She is not even named. She is a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets.

Her husband belonged to the sons of the prophets, and Elisha moved among that company and they came to him. Scripture does not stop and tell me that this particular man answered to Elisha, so I will not say it that way. What it does tell me is that his widow knew where to go.

I read her as standing on the weight of her husband’s name, because it is the only thing she puts forward.

Being in that community did not exempt them from poverty. He was one of them, he feared the LORD, and he died leaving a debt big enough to take his sons.

And Every Word About God Belongs to Him

She came with the posture of, he was all of that, and look at my situation.

Do you not remember those days? I do. Days of me doing the arithmetic out loud. My husband was faithful, and this is where it left me.

I do not read her words simply as unbelief. What I hear in them is a woman putting her husband’s faithfulness beside the crisis now at her door. It sounds to me like a woman looking for death benefits.

And I have written that invoice myself.

That is not said to shame her. It tells you where she was standing.

Now he is dead, the creditor is at the door, and there is nobody left to do it for her.

She was broke and she was broken, and she went to the person she believed could help.

And He Would Not Take Up the Husband

Elisha does not answer her complaint. He met her where she was, to meet her need.

He does not say, because your husband feared the LORD I will help you. He does not say I remember him.

She brought her husband’s faithfulness into the conversation, and Elisha did not build his answer around it. He turned her attention to what was already in the house.

He Went Straight for the Jugular

No condolence. No talk of the husband. He does not ask what the debt was or how it happened. What hast thou in the house.

And whether he knew the answer or not, the question sent her to look at what was already there. He was saying go and look, and tell me what is there.

Moses at the bush, arguing that nobody would believe him. And God does answer him, He answers him at length through that whole chapter. But look at what He does first. He asks him what is in his hand. And He does it again at the sea.

Wherefore criest thou unto me. Speak, that they go forward. Twice God turns a man from the crying to the thing already in his hand or already in front of him. Nothing is in the house, except some oil.

She answered as though it hardly counted.

She Was Given the Instructions, but No Number

She was given the steps plainly. Go. Borrow vessels. Do not borrow a few. Come in. Shut the door. Pour, and set aside the full ones.

She is told every step of it, in order, and she does not have to work out one thing for herself. That is what a person gets who needs to be led, and He led her. But look at what he did not give her. A number.

Borrow not a few.

He did not leave her wondering whether to be bold. Not a few is an instruction. Do not come back with a small ask. So she was told the size and left to decide the count.

And the Vessels She Needed Were Outside the House

The oil was already hers.

Vessels abroad, of all thy neighbors. She has to go out, and ask.

What she possessed was the oil. What she did not possess was the capacity to hold what that oil was about to become.

Her Ability Is in the Pouring

Once the door is shut, she pours, and she keeps pouring, and she keeps calling for another one until there is not one more. She does not stop halfway and doubt. She works until the work runs out.

That is where I see her capacity in the story. She kept pouring until there was no vessel left to receive more.

Bring me yet a vessel. There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. The oil did not run out. The vessels did.

The vessels ended before the provision in front of her did. And the word is not stopped. Stayed. It held where it was, and it was still oil. Scripture does not tell me what would have happened if more vessels had been there.

I Would Have Asked What If

Before I understood it, that was my question. What would have happened if there had been more vessels.

And it is a real question. I am not telling you it is a foolish one.

I have learnt tonight that Scripture does not answer it, and I am not going to answer it for Scripture.

And Elisha is a man who says it when he means it. He had already told her, borrow not a few. And when the work was finished, he gave her the next instruction. Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.

Therefore, if no rebuke came to her from him, who are we to judge. Unlike Joash.

So I Went to the Second Woman

So Lay Out What Each One Had

The widow came through a connection already present in her household.

The Shunammite had material resources and made a place for Elisha. A great woman, a house with a wall to build on, and enough to keep a prophet fed whenever he passed. She had no prophet in the family, and no child.

And She Was Offered and She Refused

Elisha had to ask his servant what she needed.

She hath no child. She never said it. Gehazi did. She never asked for the son. It was given.

And This Is Where They Meet

In the scale I am drawing, one is near the bottom materially and one near the top. And both of them stuck.

No money in the world was going to raise a dead boy. And no standing in the world was going to pay that widow’s debt.

That is where they meet, and it is the arm of the scale.

And Then the Boy Was Born, and Then He Died

Nobody Told Her What to Do

She was given no instructions, and she did not ask for any.

She laid him on the prophet’s bed. She shut the door. She saddled the ass. And she said, drive, and go forward, slack not thy riding for me.

Her husband asked and she said, it shall be well. Gehazi asked and she said, it is well. With the boy lying dead upstairs.

She told them it was well and kept riding. And when Elisha sent Gehazi ahead, she would not leave Elisha. So I read her as a woman determined to get to the source. The son came by his mouth. Read what he said to her.

And She Had a Word to Hold Him To

Do not lie unto thine handmaid. She said that when he gave the word, and she says it again when the boy is dead. And her first sentence to him proves it.

She is not asking. She is saying you spoke this, and now look.

And She Would Not Take a Substitute

Gehazi had already been sent ahead with the staff, and she would not leave Elisha. She came for the man himself and she would not move without him. And he arose, and followed her.

And she arrived vexed in her soul, and what she said was a complaint, made to a prophet, about a gift she never asked for. The text records her complaint without rebuke, and the boy lived.

Sons But No Resources. Resources But No Son.

Each one had exactly what the other lacked, and neither one could get out of her own trouble.

God multiplied what one already had. God supplied what the other did not possess.

So It Comes Down to Ability

The lesson came down to this. They both had something to work with.

Five, two, one. Nobody got nothing, and nobody got the same. And the two who traded got the same words at the end, word for word. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

And look who talks about what he did not have. The two who traded came back reporting what they gained. The one with one talent came back talking about the master and about fear.

I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

I hear an echo between that and thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house. And the difference I see is that she did not bury hers. She poured it out.

And Nobody Ever Promised the Widow Anything

The Shunammite had a word. She could hold a man to what came out of his own mouth.

No prophet ever spoke a promise over the widow’s house. She had nothing to hold anybody to, so she came with a complaint, because a complaint was all she had. One was working from a promise. One was working from a debt.

That is not her fault. That is her portion.

There Is Always Something to Work With

A little pot of oil she had mentioned only after saying she had nothing became the provision through which her debt was paid and she and her sons lived.

In these two stories neither woman was left with literally nothing. The widow had oil. The Shunammite had means, and resolve, and a word already spoken over the son. And most of us have answered nothing when we were asked what is in the house.

And My Pastor Had a Saying for It

It is not the load you carry. It is how you carry the load.

I do not know where he got it and I have never found it in Scripture, so I give it to you as a saying and not as a verse.

And I see it twice in this chapter. Neither of them put the load down. They carried it differently. That is my reading of them, laid beside his saying.

And We Cannot Go Beyond Our Ability

The master gave according to ability. He measured, then He gave, and nobody in that parable was handed a portion he was not fitted for.

So I am not going to stand here and tell you to be the Shunammite. You may not be the Shunammite. If you need to be led every step, you will be led every step, and there is no shame in it.

But It Is Not the Arm That Stops Us. It Is the Eye.

That is the other half, and it is the one that follows me home.

The one with a single talent could have traded it. Trading was inside what he had, because the master expected it of him. He buried it instead.

And Joash had the end named for him before he ever lifted his hand.

Till thou have consumed them. That is said first. Then comes smite upon the ground.

He smote thrice, and stayed. And the same word Elisha had used over the arrow, consumed, comes back in the rebuke.

So the outcome had been named before he struck. But Elisha did not tell him beforehand how many times to strike, so I will not pretend Joash knew the mechanics of the sign. What I can see is that he was told what the arrow meant, and he struck three times.

Scripture does not tell me what was in his head. What I see is a man who stopped at the size of what he could picture, and I say that because I have done it.

Do not make him the fool of the story and go home comfortable. He was a king, he came to that deathbed weeping, and he had been told plainly. So have we.

And That Is All Three of Them on One Scale

Not who tried hardest. How far the eye reached. And that scale is mine, not one Scripture draws. The widow’s account turns on obedience and provision, the Shunammite’s on a promise and a refusal to let go, and Joash’s on a sign and a rebuke. Laying the three side by side is my doing.

The widow kept pouring until there was not a vessel more, and Elisha told her to sell the oil, pay the debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. So there was a rest, and they lived on it. Joash was told he would consume Syria, and struck three times.

And the Shunammite had a dead boy upstairs and would not leave Elisha.

All three acted, and they did not all carry the action to the same length. That is my reading. That is the common denominator, and I nearly walked past it.

And Every One of Them Had the Same Man

Elisha plus a pot of oil.

Elisha plus a room built on a wall and a woman who would not leave him. Elisha plus a bow and a full quiver.

The same prophet stands in all three accounts, but the people, the circumstances, the instructions and the responses all differ. What interests me is how differently each one answered what was in front of them.

And the Shunammite rode across country to get the very man Joash had standing in front of him.

And We Are Not Left Without Help

Somebody is going to say, that is fine for them, they had a prophet. And they did. They had a man they could ride to.

He had to be found. He had to be caught before he moved on. And in the end he died. We do not have to catch anybody.

For ever. And in you. And there are two things Jesus expressly says the Holy Spirit does.

Elisha told the widow what to do. The Holy Spirit teaches and guides, and He is ours without a journey. And when I say if we let Him, that is my way of putting it and not John’s. If we let Him.

And You May Ask for the One Thing You Lack

This is the part I would not want anybody to miss.

If a person cannot see far enough, then what is there to do?

If any of you lack. He assumes we do. The lacking is not the problem.

Giveth to all men liberally. Not according to standing. Not according to what your husband was.

And upbraideth not. He does not scold you for having to ask. He does not tell you that you should have known this by now.

And that brings me back to Elisha with the widow. No rebuke, no lecture, just what hast thou in the house.

And the verse after it is the fence. Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. So it is not a magic sentence. And when I say it is asking and then acting on what comes, the acting part is mine and not James’s.

So Dare to Move Past It

Not past your ability, and I am not telling you that nothing in this life will ever come at you above your strength, because Paul says plainly that it did to him. Past where you usually stop.

Past the answer of nothing when there is still oil in the house.

Past the point where the need is met, and the hunger lifts, and we go quiet again until the next time.

And here is what I take from that parable of Jesus, and it is not what 2 Kings says. The master knew those servants before he handed anything out, and he gave according to their ability. That makes me ask whether I have fully used what is actually in my hand before I call it too little. Now go and find out where the edge of it is.