Baby Leaps

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith. It discusses the story of Elijah and a widow during a severe drought. The widow hesitates to provide food for Elijah, but he assures her that God will provide. They obey and miraculously have enough food until the rain falls. The story emphasizes the importance of faith and obedience in receiving God's provision. The narrator also shares personal experiences of witnessing God's provision in their own life. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of his word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to his perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org 1 Kings 17.13 Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid. Go and do as you have said, but make me a little cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward make some for you and your son. There had been a drought in the land for some time. Both Luke 4.25 and James 5.17 says it lasted for three years and six months, but we're not sure at what point this verse occurs within that timeline. It wasn't at the beginning, and generally speaking, it's believed that it was at least a year before it all ended. During this time, Elijah had been getting supernatural help. This woman had not. He met her when she was out gathering sticks to get fire for cooking. Her plan? Cook a small cake of oil and flour, and then she and her son were going to starve to death. She didn't mind sharing her water, but she seemed to balk at making Elijah the cake. She had just enough to feed herself and her son one last time, and I imagine the son was going to get the larger share. And then here was a prophet, another mouth, asking for what little she had. Again, she seemed to balk. Now, earlier, the Lord had told Elijah that he had commanded a widow to provide for him. Verse 7-9. After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. The Lord's word came to him, saying, Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Zidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you. Now, notice the widow that he's come across here isn't saying no. She isn't refusing. She's stating the truth. She is perhaps questioning whether this is the man that she was to provide for, as much as Elijah was questioning whether she was the widow. You see, the region of Zidon, where they were, was where Jezebel came from. It was technically within the boundaries of the tribe of Asher, but it was never fully conquered. But the widow had to have been aware of Yahweh. She uses his name. Verse 12, she said, As Yahweh your God lives, I don't have anything banked. Only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jar. So she knew who Yahweh was, your God. She knew Elijah was a Jew, and how many Jewish travelers asking her for food was she really going to come across? But still, in such a severe drought as this, well, you'd better be careful, right? Now an impression you can take from the text is that she was in denial of what God had commanded her to do. That she was focused on herself and her woes. She was denying God and the words he used to her. She was throwing everything on Elijah and God, and rejecting the truth of things. Now, if that is true, she wasn't running from God. She was running from that which God called her to do. So her denial was of assignment, not of divinity. You can also take the impression that she was just being cautious. That she was willing, but not willing to make a mistake. That she would do what God said, but only what he said. So anyone she met that wasn't the one would be turned aside. So she was being cautious. Now I lean toward the first one, but the text does not give us enough information to be clear. Now Elijah himself had already been given a test of water. He'd hidden in the wadi Kirith, which faced the Jordan. Now there he was fed by bread and meat, for however long the Lord had him sit there. Again, the Bible gives no timeline here. Now where were the ravens getting this food? Who was baking bread in the middle of a drought? Well, Elijah was operating in Israel, and the temple was in Judah. We don't know exactly where this wadi was, but one of the guesses puts it about 15 kilometers from Jerusalem. That isn't too far to fly, now is it? In spite of the famine, the temples were still producing bread for the worship of the Lord. They were still sacrificing offerings. So would it be so odd for the Lord to provide for Elijah out of the temple, where the birds could easily snatch bread and meat? Speculation, I know, but it makes sense to me. I like to think it's true. Now regardless, Elijah had been somewhere with natural water and plenty of food supernaturally provided by the Lord. Now the water ran out, but he didn't leave. He stayed. The water dried up, and he stayed. He didn't budge until he heard from the Lord. And he didn't hear from the Lord until after the water dried up. Can you imagine that? He would have seen it slowly shrinking in volume day by day until it was nothing, and then he would have been digging into the mud to try to strain the water out and digging deeper and digging deeper, but he didn't move. He stayed faithful. God gives him the word. He shifts location. Now he was somewhere that had plenty of water. In a drought, she was willing to give him water without issue, complaint, or anything. He asks for it. Boom, she's going off to get some. No. The test in this town was food. Now you might say that the last place he had to trust for food, but that really isn't true. God commanded animals. Animals are smart, but they are not in the same class as humans. They have no free will. They follow directions. They're slaves to instinct. Now there had been no source of food in the Wadi, but he knew God commanded the birds, so he didn't have to worry about it. And really, after the first bird showed up, you're just trusting, okay, as long as I'm here, I'm fine. But here in this town, there was no evidence of food. Worse, what was there wasn't enough for the three of them. Remember, it really wasn't enough for the two of them. So they had to use faith. They had to use free will to stay there and obey by choice, and they had to trust completely on the Lord. The woman obviously isn't used to this. She is taking faith baby steps. She had an assignment, but she wasn't walking in it confidently, but it was laid on her. And again, she might seem to be balking, but there's no evidence that she's actually choosing to be disobedient. She's just taking very wobbly baby steps. Perhaps the leading of the spirit, Elijah, makes it easy for her. He encourages her not to be fearful. We know that Elijah was anointed of God, and currently he is walking in 100% obedience to the Lord. So there was authority in his words. Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid. Go and do as you have said. But make me a little cake from it first, and bring it out to me. And afterward, make some for you and for your son. For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, The jar of meal will not run out, and the jar of oil will not fail, until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the earth. That's verses 13 to 14. She has been commanded by God to feed a prophet. She recognizes him as a prophet, your God, remember? Or at the very least, as a Jew. And she's been given a promise now, with a condition. If you'll feed me first, Elijah says. Why? Because he's greedy? No. To give her a chance to show obedience. To give her a chance to give of her first fruits. To show she has been persuaded. To demonstrate faith, which is manifested obedience. We have dominion on earth, remember? The Lord has restricted his involvement in his own sovereignty by his own choice to interactions with us, not dictatorial acts. So when we act out his word, his instructions, promises, or commands, then he moves to fulfill. We trigger his responses with our faith. The woman chose to believe. She chose to pick up her assignment properly. She walks confidently and doesn't look back. She demonstrated faith as she went and did what Elijah told her to do. And for as long as he was with her, they had meal and they had oil. Now she was taking baby leaps. They did not starve. But there is again even more. The promise of the Lord wasn't dependent on Elijah's presence. Eventually, Elijah leaves. He walks away to continue the confrontation with the priests of Baal and the drama with Ahab and Jezebel. But the window and her son still ate. Because until the conflict with the idol worshippers was over, until Elijah had walked out the victory God gave him, there was no rain. But the Lord had said to her that the jar of meal would not run out nor the jar of oil until rain fell again. He provided for her just as he said he would no matter where Elijah was. Until the rain fell, she and her family were fed. Now one of the names of the Lord means he will provide. Genesis 22, 14. And he does provide for us. Sometimes by guiding, sometimes by blessing, and sometimes by supernatural means. Sometimes by natural means. It still happens today. It's not just stories from the Bible. I've heard it from trusted people. I've witnessed it firsthand myself. I've had food stretch in impossible ways. For Christmas of 2021, we were blessing the baristas of local coffee shops working on Christmas Day by bringing them food. It was two or three. Actually no, three. It was three coffee shops. I had enough food for what I thought I would need. But at the last minute, two more stores and 10 or 15 people were added. Okay? We'd made the commitment to bless them. Whatever you want, Lord. Help work it out how you want. I made what I could. I was planning to give less food to each place and varying up the menus so they would spread out. So two of them might get the green beans, but another one might get the carrots instead. But once the food was made and I put it into the containers, there was a different story. Now this is food I'd made before at these amounts. Shaped containers that I'd dealt with before. What was going to barely stretch to cover the stores was now enough to give everyone some of everything. Plus there was enough left over for our large family, there's seven of us, to eat with leftovers that covered a meal with our extended family. Total of 10 people. Now you might think that I had miscalculated. That I just didn't realize how much I had to work with. Look, let me tell you something. I do this every year, several times a year. Like big meals for the family, I mean. Making these dishes, I know what I was dealing with. And those stores fed themselves for three days on the food they received that day. Now it should have been enough for one meal and some take home, really depending on how much they ate. You know, some people have tiny amounts, some people have a lot. I didn't have enough to give them a feast. But they got a feast. Now it was impossible. And you don't have to believe me, but I am telling you from experience, that food got stretched in an impossible way. Now this wasn't keeping you from starving during a drought level of miracle. No. But anything beyond the possible counts in my book. Why did it happen? Because the Lord told us to bless those stores. We committed and walked in the idea of blessing them to the best of our ability. We weren't going to limit God, but we were going to do our best for Him and for them with what we had. Now when it looked like they might get an okay blessing, He stepped in and gave them a full blessing. The Lord wants us blessed beyond resources, beyond reason, but not beyond Him. No one can outbless Jesus. Will it happen every time? I don't know. Because these things only happen according to the will of the Father. And I'll be honest, I haven't seen it happen again. But it could. Should an economic disaster or supply line Armageddon happen, I have total faith in the idea that I can feed my neighborhood out of my pantry. Nothing is beyond Jesus. The real question is what are you persuaded of? What level of persuasion, of faith are you lifting up to God? What are you looking for Him to open for you? A window? Or the barn doors of the storehouses of heaven? I'm not talking about Rolls Royces and gold toilets here. I am talking blessing. We live in a chaotic time. Food security is a worry for many people. But if you reject that worry, if you choose to say that you don't care about food prices, transportation strikes, supply chain disruptions, failed crops, lack of food in stores, or anything else that comes up. If you choose to be totally, absolutely, 100% persuaded that the Lord God who sustains can and will sustain you and provide for all of your needs as you are doing whatever it is that the Lord tells you to do, whether that means blessing those around you with physical things or whether that just means getting up and going to work, then anything is possible. With God, anything is possible. Matthew 19 26, Mark 10 27, and Luke 18 27. Rely on God. Listen to His voice. Be obedient, even and especially when it looks impossible. Be persuaded that what He says He can or will do, He is capable of doing. Romans 4 20-22 Don't be afraid, stressed, anxious, or depressed about the appearance of lack, no matter what it is. He has said He will meet your needs and He who sustains will never let you down. If you believe nothing else, believe that. Jesus doesn't lie. God will never let you down. Your needs will be met. He will not let you down ever, so don't fear. Instead, believe. Have faith, not fear. Let the Word persuade you. Let Him bless you. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Ephesians 1. Before the world was founded, we were chosen. Jesus redeemed us. He lavished grace on us. He blesses us with wisdom and insight and reveals mysteries. He helps us accomplish all things. He speaks truth, full and only truth. He can reveal to us the riches of the glorious inheritance He has planned for us. Now, if all of that isn't showing the love that God has for us, I don't know what does. But do we see it? The prayer for Paul for the Ephesian church was in verses 17 to 23. It is a prayer that we should all be praying daily for ourselves and those in our church family. That we receive a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. That the eyes of our hearts be enlightened. That we know His hope and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in every way. That we see His power and the strength of His might. This is the God we rely on. Do we know what we rely on? Here Paul encourages us to. To know and have revealed to us what God is and what God can do. To truly comprehend what the name of Jesus is and what it can do. Demons quake and beg. The world shanks. Do you have that knowledge inside of you? That this is the God who loves and corrects you? I pray that you pray this prayer and come into the knowledge of who Jesus is. Not overnight, but over time as you meditate this chapter out. If it gets a hold of you, there is no end to the change in your life that is possible. Our victory is in Jesus. The more we understand Jesus, the more of His victory we can walk in. Remember that greater is He who is in you than what you were in. Sickness? He's bigger. Black? He's bigger. Decay? He's bigger. Infirmity? He's bigger. Whatever? Wherever? He's bigger. Open your minds to the possibility that He can open your heart to that truth. The truth. Today. As we close, remember that you have birth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love and no end to the things about you that He loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember the Lord loves you just because you're you. 1 John 4, 9-10 tells us By this, God's love was revealed in us that God has sent His only-born Son into the world that we might live through Him. And this is love. Not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love warmed away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because He first loved us. He just loved us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.