Daily Devotion, May 5, 2021

 

Devotion:

Read 1 Kings 17:17-24.

Last week we read from I Kings 17 of God’s compassionate work through Elijah, and a widow and her son, to provide food in the midst of a severe drought. This same widow now seeks help from Elijah for her dying son. Verse 17 says, “Some time later.” We don’t know the time frame, but the widow’s son had been ill, grew worse and finally stopped breathing.

The widow’s honest question to Elijah indicates her fear that his presence has brought her sin to the attention of God and she is now being punished. Sometimes in many ways, when tragedies occur, we ask this same question. But Elijah knew that this was not the way of the living God.

I also appreciate Elijah’s honest question to God. Through it all, God continues to be at work in their midst to restore life to the widow’s son. Dr. J.Robert Vannoy writes, “This is the first instance of raising the dead to life recorded in scripture. This non-Israelite widow was granted the supreme covenant blessing, the gift of life rescued from the power of death. A son’s life was the only hope for a widow in ancient society.”

There’s a deeper story here. In Luke 4: 24-27, Jesus says, “‘Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.’”

Sometimes we believe that we remain outside God’s circle of grace or we want to contain God’s circle of grace for a small circle of people. But Jesus came to shed new light on God’s work through the prophets of the Old Testament and by the example of his own life. God’s grace is offered to each and all. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

Personal Worship Option:

 “When we dare to host the prophetic word, we are transformed. For we encounter a God who delivers the powerless, a God whose word yields inexhaustible abundance, a God whose compassion is stronger than death. Elijah’s prophetic word points to the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. Host that word, know the truth, and live.” (from Dr. Carolyn J. Sharp)