Skip to main content

Thoughts From Priscilla Shirer

Dear Friends,

During difficult times have you ever been tempted to focus only on the negative, the lack, the struggle, the sense of hopelessness? And if you were tempted to do so, did it blind you to what you did have? Did it cause you to overlook the blessings that were there all along, even in the midst of those times of lack? It’s not hard to do so. Our mounting concerns during difficult times can blind us to God’s supply.

This week’s “thought” speaks to that situation. It comes from the devotional book entitled “Awaken” by Priscilla Shirer. A friend gave it to me a couple weeks back and I’m just starting to go through it. This particular devotion is entitled “What Do You Have?” and is based on II Kings 4:2 where a widow owes money, is confronted by creditors who come and threaten to take her two sons and sell them into slavery, in order to cover her debt. When Elisha finds out, he asks her: “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” Priscilla’s insights are quite good. Enjoy!


“A common link nearly always exists between our needs and God’s answers – a thread woven into the fabric of our relationship with the Father that, if overlooked, can cost us the most intimate and majestic experience with Him possible on this side of eternity. And in II Kings 4, this critical strand is clearly marked out for all of us to see.

A woman, bereft of husband and financial stability, came to the prophet Elisha requesting help. Creditors were demanding payment for the debts she owed, and threatening to take her children away as part of the bargain. She was desperate. Crying out. Unable to pay. Unable to do much at all. Elisha graciously listened to her plight. He asked her how she thought he could assist her. But before even waiting for her response to that question, he posed another more vital one: “What do you have?" he asked. “In the house.” In other words, what resources are available to you?

How easily we point to our lack. How specifically we highlight our deficiency. How quickly we become consumed with the glaring evidence of all that’s working against us, the hardships that are pressing us into such desperate straits. We are far less inclined to accentuate the gifts and blessings that remain. But Elisha, in refocusing the widow’s attention on the meager pot of oil sitting there amid all her difficulty and hardship, forever changed the way she would look at her most heart-wrenching need.

It can change the way we look at ours too. Like a glint of sunshine passing through ominous clouds on a dreary day, hope pierced through the darkness in her home. The foundation for a miracle was right under her nose…if only she would take the time and energy required to go and look. If only she would become as invested in expecting God’s answers as she’d been invested in lodging her complaints.

“What do you have in the house?”

What’s in your house? Within your reach? Sometimes we wait impatiently on God when He is patiently waiting on us – waiting for us to recognize what He’s already given as part of the answer to our problem. What little shred of possibility have you chosen to ignore? What little patch of time have you disparaged? What little hints of blessing have you criticized as insufficient? What little, humble beginnings have you shoved to the back of the shelf, considering them too meager or unworthy of being the basis for God’s miraculous intentions?

Maybe the answer you’ve been praying for is already there, a plain-as-day response from God to your plea, immediately ready to be applied to this situation. God will always be faithful to help you through the desperate challenges you face. Some things, obviously, only He can do. But take that good look around to see what’s already at your disposal. That little jar of oil may well be the beginning of the most spectacular move of God you’ve ever seen.

What are some of the “jars of oil” you might be overlooking right now that He’s already provided? Make a list and keep it handy for future gratitude and reflection.” Peter says, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and goodness” (II Peter 1:3).

Are you in one of those downward spirals? Is your focus so fixed on the trial, and the lack, that you can’t even see what He has supplied? What God-given gift might you be overlooking that is right there in your home? Will you pause and look? Will you ask God to show you? Maybe the answer has been there all along, and you just needed this reminder from the prophet Elisha to stop and look around. Noticing is the first step to appreciating, appreciating opens the door to hopeful thinking, and hopeful thinking can lead to very unexpected possibilities. God loves to surprise us!


His grace is sufficient, because His power is made perfect in our weakness, Pastor Jeff

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts From Horatius Bonar

Dear Friends, If you are like me, you may have had a bad experience in the past with churches that stressed “holiness.” Not because churches shouldn’t, but because the focus was placed on outward conformity to externalisms, or a prescribed set of moralism’s that sucked the atmosphere of grace out of the church. In fact, the more effort-based versions of “holiness” are stressed, the more grace disappears – and the vacuum left in its wake is filled with even more rigid standards of morality and law-based duties – driving all who truly struggle with sin into hiding or pretending. And of all the books I have ever read on holiness (or godliness) none (in my opinion) hold a candle to “God’s Way of Holiness” by the Scottish minister Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). A book I have given to numerous people to read. If you were one who was turned off, or wounded, by a form of holiness based on what Bonar calls, “constrained externalism” or self-effort, I offer you this selection as a taste of w...

Thoughts on the Moravian Revival

Dear Friends, I have told many that if I was not a pastor, I would be a history teacher! History thrills me! Any history, but church history in particular. Therefore, today, I would like to share one of my favorite events in church history. It is the Moravian Revival or Moravian Pentecost of 1727. It’s too significant of an event for you NOT to know about! So, I offer you this condensed summary, hoping it inspires you as much as it has me. Thanks given to Tony Cauchi whose post on “The Revival Library” ( https://revival-library.org/histories/1727-the-great-awakening-moravians/ ) much of this material was borrowed from and expanded upon. Enjoy! Who Are We Talking About? The Moravians were the spiritual descendants of Jan Hus, the Czechoslovakian reformer/martyr who took his stand on the biblical Gospel of “Grace alone, by Faith alone through Christ alone” and paid for it with his life on July 6, 1415 –just over 100 years before Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of t...

Thoughts From Rick Morgan and Wendell and Melanie Nofziger

Dear Friends, Today, instead of passing along a thought from a published book, I wanted to offer two different “thoughts” from two personal friends presently ministering in other parts of the world. They attended my church in Honduras at some point between 1994-2005 (on occasions when they were not doing their mission work there). I still follow their ministries with a little bit of envy – just a little, not a sinful amount! The first is by Rick Morgan. Rick now resides with his wife Kim in El Salvador and continues to minister throughout Latin America and Spain as a traveling Pastor/Evangelist/Encourager to pastors and churches. The second is by Wendell and Melanie Nofziger who serve with EMM (Eastern Mennonite Missions) mentoring and making disciples as they direct VidaNet (LifeNet) in Costa Rica. I enjoy ge...