Life doesn’t always go the way we dream it up does it?
Good and bad, jobs are lost, marriages are started and ended, relationships/people are lost, dreams are realized, new life is born...
Sometimes we are left waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Things get turned upside down and inside out.
So, what happens when our dreams and expectations are shattered by life’s disappointments?
This is a story of a woman dream who’s been broken due to outside circumstances:
2 Kings 4:1-7
1.The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha and says “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord, but now his creditors are coming to take my boys as slaves.”2. Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, except a small jar of olive oil.” 3. Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. 4. 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.” 5. She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons...
Back then there was no Holy Spirit interacting with people as we know Him today. There was no Bible as we know it. This widow came to the Lord the only way they could back then, through a prophet and said, ‘Jesus you got a problem.’
I find it curious that Elisha asked a question but then never left room for a response. Elisha knew there was a miracle to be had and so did the widow. How many times have I missed what God is saying because I kept talking? I can not help but think how many times the Lord has told me to do something and it takes me “time” to do it. Like I am running the pros and cons through my head and figuring out the best possible way to go about it. Arguing with myself. Was that really God? Trying to dot my i’s and cross my t’s for something that wasn’t even possible for me to do in the first place.
This widow put aside her pride and her but-Gods. She had nothing. Her neighbors probably knew that she was in debt to creditors. Back then the creditors were at your door. They were noticed. Her neighbors certainly knew their circumstances. And yet Elisha was telling her to go to the very people who knew she had nothing and ask for. Despite all that she chose to act. She set all of that aside and opened her eyes and looked for a miracle.
She followed his prompting and got the jars and she went and shut her and her son in. What we do in private matters.
How we act, what we say, what we listen to, how we treat our families behind closed doors matters. The Bible tells us over and over again that it is less about what we do in public than what we do in private.
She shut her and her sons in private... "They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7She went and told Elisha and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”
What I love about this widow is that she didn’t come to rehash what happened or go over all of the reasons she’s struggling. She took her problem straight to Jesus. There was no bitterness & un-forgiveness for what had happened. She didn’t need Elisha to pity her or justify why she feels the way she felt. She didn’t have a list of reasons and excuses. She went to God for answers expecting a miracle and then... she did what the Lord said and her and her boys were rewarded with a private encounter with the Lord.
If only we could have been in that room! Could you imagine the energy?!? The excitement?!? And sear wonder!? These boys were about to be taken as slaves. I can only imagine the anguish slowly washing away as they watched the impossible.
My son will on the regular bust a move where ever he is when he gets excited. For instance I buy a cereal that we have been out of; bam dance party! I picture the funnest dance party going with uncontrollable giggling when I imagine the scene.
They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.
Don’t you think that widow gave testimony? She told Elisha. Her neighbors probably asked. The debtors no doubt did.
You can bet God took her story and used it for His glory!
Her husband was a ‘son of the prophet’. Which meant that he was training to be a man of the Lord. Their family followed God and we see that when we look at the widows reaction. She didn’t search for help in all the wrong places, she went to the prophet. They were a family who served the Lord and she took all of her hope and all of her shattered dreams and laid them at His feet.
I think that sometimes it is easy for those of us who know Jesus to believe that we have some kind of Jesus-immunity to family problems, financial struggles and relationship chaos. But that is not the case at all.
God is not a genie in a bottle.
Once we accept Jesus, everything is not going to magically become sunshine and cinnamon rolls and all our wildest dreams come true, and we are blessed beyond measure and, and... but often times we measure those blessings by the worlds standards.
Sometimes our dreams and our plans get highjacked by the enemy of our souls.
And I believe how we respond to the good, the bad, and the ugly in our lives will determine whether we’re launched closer to God’s dream for our lives or farther from it.
Where are we placing our hope? In God? Or in the dream we created for our life?
Often times we can not change the circumstances around us. There are too many outlying factors for us to control.
What we do have control over is how we decide to respond.
Do we respond with bitterness, hurt, doubt and anger?
That is not how she responded.
She laid her shattered dreams at the Lords feet and looked to Him. She placed her all hope... everything she had left in the Lord.
No bitterness. No why me Lord.
Simply, “Jesus, you have a problem. How do you want to show up?”
Where is your hope placed?
We want to invite you to put it in the hands of the Dream-Giver.
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