NOV 25 |When God's Answer Makes No Sense: The Widow's Oil and Creative Obedience
What do you do when God's solution to your crisis seems completely illogical?
There's a story tucked away in 2 Kings chapter 4 that has quietly wrecked the way I think about provision, faith, and what it actually means to trust God when everything is falling apart. It's the story of a broke widow, a strange prophet, and a miracle that almost didn't happen—all because of empty jars.
If you've ever felt like your resources are too thin, your problems are too big, and God seems to be giving you instructions that make absolutely no sense... this one's for you.
The Setup: When Creditors Come Knocking
Here's what we're walking into. A widow—the wife of one of the prophets—comes to Elisha in complete panic. Her husband is dead. The creditors are circling like vultures. And here's the thing about debt in the ancient world that we need to understand: they didn't just wreck your credit score when you couldn't pay. They took your children. As slaves.
Let that sink in for a moment. This woman isn't worried about her FICO score. She's about to lose her sons.
So she does what any desperate person would do. She runs to the prophet Elisha, hoping for some kind of divine intervention. A miracle. A solution. Anything.
And Elisha asks her one simple question: "What do you have in the house?"
Her answer is heartbreaking in its honesty: "Nothing... except a small jar of oil."
Nothing. Except.
Those two words carry so much weight. She's done the inventory. She's looked in every corner, every cabinet, every hidden space. And all she's found is one small container of olive oil. Completely inadequate for her situation. Worthless against her debt.
But here's where the story takes a turn that nobody expected.
The Holy Workaround: Instructions That Don't Add Up
Now watch what Elisha doesn't do. He doesn't say, "Let me pray about this and get back to you next week." He doesn't start a GoFundMe campaign. He doesn't even promise that God will definitely come through.
Instead, he gives her what I call a holy workaround—a set of instructions that seem to have nothing to do with solving her actual problem.
Second Kings 4:3-4 records it: "Go, borrow vessels from all your neighbors—empty vessels. And not just a few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels."
Borrow. Empty. Vessels.
If I'm that widow, I'm standing there thinking, "Sir, I came to you with a financial crisis, and you're asking me to collect garbage from my neighbors? How exactly does borrowing empty jars solve my debt problem?"
But she does it anyway.
And this is where everything we think we know about faith and provision gets turned upside down.
The Pattern God Uses Again and Again
Here's what Elisha understood that we often miss: God rarely works around us. He almost always works through us. And usually—almost frustratingly often—He starts with what we already have, even when what we have seems completely inadequate for the situation.
She had one jar of oil. That's it. But God wasn't looking at her resources. He was looking at her capacity for obedience.
Think about the pattern here. It shows up everywhere in Scripture:
Moses had a shepherd's staff. Seemed useless against Pharaoh's army. God parted a sea with it.
David had five smooth stones. Seemed laughable against a giant in armor. One stone changed history.
A boy had five loaves and two fish. Seemed pathetic for a crowd of thousands. Jesus fed five thousand with leftovers.
The pattern is consistent: God multiplies what we're willing to surrender.
But here's the catch—we have to actually surrender it first. We have to take the step of obedience before we see the multiplication.
Three Principles That Change Everything
As I've sat with this passage over the years, three things have jumped out at me that have genuinely transformed how I approach seasons of scarcity and need.
1. The Instruction Seemed Illogical, But It Wasn't Optional
Borrow empty vessels? From a purely financial perspective, that advice makes zero sense. You don't solve a debt crisis by collecting trash from your neighbors.
But here's the thing about faith that we need to remember: it rarely looks logical from the outside.
Abraham leaving his homeland for a destination he didn't know. Moses confronting the most powerful ruler on earth with nothing but a wooden stick. Joshua's army marching around walls instead of attacking them. None of it made sense on paper.
Obedience doesn't require understanding. It requires trust.
I've been in situations where I felt God nudging me toward something that made absolutely no sense by any reasonable calculation. My instinct was to wait—to hold off until I understood the full picture, until I could see how all the pieces fit together.
But sometimes God is waiting for us to move before He reveals the next step. Sometimes the multiplication is on the other side of the obedience, not before it.
2. The Scope of the Miracle Was Determined by Her Preparation
This is the part that really gets me. Look at what happens in verse 4. She pours oil into the borrowed vessels, and the oil keeps flowing... until what? Until she runs out of containers.
The oil didn't stop because God ran out. God doesn't run out of anything. It stopped because she ran out—of containers, of capacity, of expectation.
What if she had borrowed twice as many jars? Three times as many? Elisha specifically told her "not just a few." He was hinting at something profound: your preparation reveals your faith.
Here's the uncomfortable question: How often do we pray small prayers and prepare for small answers, then wonder why God seems distant or stingy? Maybe—just maybe—God's provision is waiting on the other side of our willingness to prepare for something bigger than what makes logical sense.
What would it look like to borrow more jars? To expand your capacity for what God might do?
3. She Had to Shut the Door
Verse 4 includes this curious detail: "Shut the door behind yourself and your sons."
Why? What difference does it make whether the door is open or closed? Wouldn't an open door allow others to witness the miracle?
I think it's because this miracle wasn't meant to be a performance. It was provision. Personal. Intimate. Between her and God.
Some of the most profound work God does happens in the hidden places. Behind closed doors. When nobody's watching. When nobody's applauding. When it's just you and God and your desperate need and His ridiculous-sounding instructions.
Maybe you're in a season right now where you feel invisible. Your struggle is happening behind closed doors, and nobody seems to see it or care about it. But here's what this story tells us: God does His best work in those hidden places. When faith becomes personal, not performative.
The Connection to the Bigger Story
This isn't just a random, isolated miracle tucked away in the Old Testament. This is a pattern—a thread that runs through the entire biblical narrative.
God taking what's insufficient and making it overflow. God working through human weakness rather than around it. God inviting us to participate in our own deliverance rather than just rescuing us while we sit passively by.
The Apostle Paul would later write that God's power is made perfect in weakness. Not despite our weakness—in it. That's a strange economy. It's not how the world works. But it's absolutely how God works.
And here's the gospel connection that's easy to miss: Jesus Himself became insufficient—became weak, became broken—so that through His insufficiency, we could receive overflow. The cross looked like the ultimate defeat. Three days later, it became the ultimate victory.
God specializes in holy workarounds.
Your Small Jar of Oil
So here's the question I want to leave you with this week: What's your small jar of oil?
What's the thing you have that seems completely inadequate for what you're facing right now? Maybe it's a skill you've dismissed as unimportant. A relationship that feels too broken to matter. A resource that seems too small to make any difference.
And what would it look like to take a step of creative obedience? To borrow some empty vessels, metaphorically speaking? To prepare for something bigger than what makes logical sense based on your current circumstances?
Because here's the truth that this story proclaims across the centuries: God isn't limited by what you bring to the table. He's waiting to see what you'll do with the little you have.
A Practical Step for This Week
Take inventory this week. Not of what you lack—you probably already know that list by heart. Instead, take inventory of what you have. What resources, skills, relationships, or opportunities are sitting in your house right now that you've written off as inadequate?
Then ask God a dangerous question: "What ridiculous instruction might You be waiting for me to obey?"
And if you're in a season where the creditors are circling and you feel like you're about to lose something precious... shut the door. Pour out what little you have. And trust that the God who multiplied oil for a broke widow three thousand years ago hasn't forgotten your address.
He's still in the business of holy workarounds.
The question is: how many jars are you willing to borrow?
What's your "small jar of oil" right now? Share in the comments below—sometimes naming it is the first step toward seeing God multiply it.
An Invitation to go Deeper….
If today’s message spoke to you, join the FaithLabz 30-Day Prayer Challenge and strengthen your connection with God’s unshakable love. You are never alone—let’s grow together!
