Lent: A Journey to Hope in Uncertain TimesSample

One of the greatest ways to share hope is to guide others to participate in God’s redemptive story. Elisha does this in the account of the widow with the jar of oil. In this encounter, a widow of one of the prophets confronts Elisha. She is desperate because a creditor is about to take her sons and sell them into slavery to pay off debts she and her late husband incurred. The widow and her sons find hope as they watch God miraculously use their small oil jar to fill many other jars they can sell. God provides the resources to pay off their debts with enough extra that they have funds to live. Elisha points the widow in the right direction, and she and her sons actively participate in the restoration of their hope. This is God’s gift of generosity in perhaps its purest form—when those of us with needs (that’s everyone) are given a new vision of hope to see how God can use whatever we have (skills, relationships, resources, etc.) far beyond our wildest imaginations. We can be conduits of God’s power.

REFLECT

• How does Elisha center the widow and her sons in the passage?
• How do you think the widow and her sons felt as jar after jar was filled?

RESPOND

• What does Elisha’s example teach us about generosity and hope?