God takes us seriously

God wants us to participate in partnership with Him when He is performing great miracles for our lives. We were saying that Elisha asks this widow: what do you have at home? and by doing this he is involving her in this process because we said that God likes to work with us in the elaboration of His miracles, our miracles.

One of the things we have to take into account is that God takes us seriously and that He wants us to take ourselves seriously as well. There are things that God wants to do in our life and that He does not do because we are not cooperating with Him, we are indolent and passive and we believe that God has to do everything, no. There are things He wants us to do and He likes to work in partnership with us.

Here she responds to Elisha's question: "Your servant has nothing in the house but a pot of oil." It is interesting that many times the things that God needs to do his miracles are not adequate from a human point of view. When God asks us to participate in the elaboration of His miracles, we will generally discover that we do not have the necessary resources for the miracle to work naturally because, in the Christian life, God always works through faith.

There is something interesting and it is that many times we have to disqualify ourselves before God can do something through us so that the glory is God's and not ours. The Bible says that we have this treasure in earthen vessels and jars so that likewise the glory may be God's and not ours. The sublime Gospel of God incarnates in imperfect, brittle, sinful men, prone to errors so that ultimately everything results in glory for the Lord.

God delights in using clay pots, imperfect people, inadequate resources because He wants to display His Power that way. And here we have this woman saying: look at the only thing I have in my house, this woman is so poor that the only thing of possible value that she has to solve her debt is a clay pot, a pot we could say in more terms understandable to us. Only one, not many but only one, but that was enough to start the process, it was like, for the Scripture to be fulfilled.

Do you remember the passage when the Lord is with His disciples who are going to arrest Him and there was a prophecy that there were going to be some things there, that the Lord was going to be counted among the thugs, and it says: how many swords do you have among you? ? As it was a violation, maybe to have swords without a license or whatever it is called and they find there a sword all damaged and moldy, and they say: well, all we have is this kitchen knife here and the Lord says: That is enough for it to be fulfill the Scripture.

Many times all God needs is simply a basic action on our part. God is not very demanding but He does want us to make an effort.

If we want to get a job God does not want us to be there in bed reading the newspaper because we believe that God is going to bring him and someone is going to come and get us out of bed to get dressed and take us to work, the Lord wants us to read the newspaper but to look in the classified ad sheet and see if we find it, that we call by phone, that we ask our friends: hey, do you know of any jobs out there? God wants us to do our part, to be diligent.

God says to Joshua: "Look, I command you to try hard and be brave" God had promised him the land but he had to fight the battles to obtain the victory with the Power and the help of the Lord.

Then Elisha says to him: what do you have in your house? this woman says to him: well, I have a pot of oil. She has to search, she has to provide something, she has to give a deposit, and the vessel is the deposit. And then he says to him: "Go and borrow pots for yourself from all your neighbors, not a few empty pots."

This woman, again, now has to run errands. God is going to do a marvelous miracle that will last centuries, we are still benefiting from this great miracle but it requires her to do her part, so she sends her children around the neighborhood to find many pots, many pots to fill them all with oil.

This is not very elegant, is it? One would have wanted God to make a hole in the Earth, line it with very beautiful clay, or metal and then emerge from the base, if I had done the miracle I would have done it that way but God does His things as He did. feels like right? that the oil arose and that there was a well of extra virgin olive oil there. But this woman now has many vessels, she has the floor of her house all full of vessels.

I imagine that God also wanted the whole neighborhood to be part of this miracle, to see the glory of God, right? because many times the miracles that God wants to do in our lives are not only for our own benefit but He wants the faith of the community around us to increase as well and to bring greater glory to what He is doing.

So I think there was a reason why God sent this woman to look for vessels all over the neighborhood, because He wanted to project His Power to everyone who was around this woman. Do you know that our trials, our struggles, if we resolve them in the Lord, have an evangelistic power to bless others as well and tell them about that merciful, powerful, real, faithful God who intervenes on our behalf that we have as children of God.

So this woman is glorified that this woman and her children are involved in the miracle and that is why she sends them to look for them. This is what I call a shared miracle in the Bible. God involves the woman, involves her children, involves the community, involves the energies of all the people, this miracle involves many vessels and all of this is part of God's purpose.

And then this woman has to lock herself up. There is a public part for the miracle but there is also a private part for the miracles. So this woman has to shut herself in and God is going to do the other necessary part, but in that community involvement God is also being glorified.

We will continue our meditation in our next segment, God bless you.