Water Cake and the Widow of Zarephath

May 1, 2020

I am enjoying some Water Cake this morning with my tea. Have you ever tried that? It’s an unusual recipe because it doesn’t require any ingredients from the frig like milk, butter or eggs. It’s made with water and ingredients from the pantry, including oil, flour and sugar. It’s a good recipe to have during times like a pandemic or a blackout, when you can’t always get everything you want at the grocery store or keep everything you want in the refrigerator.

As I was making it this week, I was thinking about another woman who didn’t have butter, milk or eggs to cook with either. Her story is in the Bible, in 1st Kings 17.

She lived at the same time as God’s prophet Elijah, and there was a drought where they were. From the beginning of this drought, God had led Elijah to a place alongside a brook, where he had good, fresh water to drink. God sent birds to him twice a day, carrying meat and bread for him to eat! Can you imagine what that delivery service might have been like?

After a while, though, God had a different job for Elijah to do. He told Elijah to go to a certain city to meet a certain woman. Elijah obeyed and left the brook. He found the woman, a widow, at the city gates, gathering little sticks for a fire. He asked her for some water, but before she could get it, he asked her to bring a piece of bread, too.

She stopped and told him she had no bread; all she had left to eat was a handful of flour and a little bit of oil. She told Elijah she was building the fire to cook that up for herself and her son, and then she said they would die. She would have no food left.

You know what Elijah told her right off the bat? “Do not fear.” Do you know God tells us that 365 times in the Bible? DO NOT BE AFRAID.

Elijah told her to go ahead and make her flour-and-oil bread cake, but to serve him first! He told her that God would not let the oil and flour run out until the drought was over.

The woman went to make the food, but I wonder what she was thinking. Do you think she doubted? Do you think she wondered if God would really keep his promise? Do you think she was angry—she hardly had any food left for her and her son, but she was supposed to give some of it up? 

Do you wonder if her maternal instincts fought against her faith and spirit, which was telling her to seek God first, and he would care for the rest? I think mine would have been at war.

Whatever her thoughts may have been, she obeyed. She served Elijah first and God kept his promise. Their oil and flour did not run out until there was rain. She, Elijah and her son had food to eat every single day of the drought.

Sometimes, when we’re in hard circumstances, it’s easy to fear. It’s tempting to fight for our way, our rights, our stuff. It’s so easy to worry about ourselves and stop caring about others. But that isn’t what God wants us to do. He wants us to trust, not fear, even when circumstances are hard. He wants us to keep reaching out and showing His love to other people, even when it’s not easy. They need to know God loves them, no matter what our circumstances are. We need to see people over problems, to see them as closely as possible to how God himself sees them.

Whatever we go through, God will be there with us. We just keep walking with him, and he keeps walking with us. We don’t have to worry about ourselves. He is the one who fed Elijah with a raven delivery service and a widow with oil and flour that wouldn’t run out! So, let’s stop worrying. Instead, let’s ask God who we can reach out to today. . . . who we can help, encourage and pray for this week.

You are loved! Have a great week!